If you are a freshman here at Fairchild Wheeler, here’s some pieces of advice from your upperclassmen juniors and seniors that could help you out with high school.
For freshmen, I’m sure that high school is at least a little bit different than how middle school worked. High school is an important step up from middle school, especially responsibility-wise. After all, it’ll be four more years that seem to pass by in a blink, and then you’ll be applying for college, work, or whatever you want to pursue after finishing all your basic education.
To 2 juniors and 2 seniors, I asked one simple question:
“What’s a piece of advice that you found valuable in helping you best get through your high school years?”
Here’s what I got as responses:
“Locking in is probably the greatest advice I could give you. You don’t want to be lazy and miss any assignments or just be lazy because you want to be lazy. If you get good grades now, in sophomore year, you’ll get good classes that will help you in the future for college. You will get classes from sophomore year to junior year to get prepared for college. If you don’t take responsibility at freshmen year? By the time you’re a senior? You’re already cooked. And I’m not trying to say that in a mean way, but I’m just being honest.. You’re not gonna make it in life. Even if you don’t go to college, you’re not gonna make it at all in the future. So, lock in now and practice taking responsibility on yourself and being independent.. so, when you’re up to junior and senior year, you are okay. Like, you know how to take care of yourself, you know how to actually get your grades in, instead of being lacky, lazy, and not being prepared at all.”
-Isabella De Oliveira, Junior
“Honestly I think the best piece of advice I’ve been given is to just take things at your own pace.. Like, it’s really easy especially in high school to overwhelm yourself with the workload or trying to do your best.. But I’ve learned that, like, because I’m really hard on myself, so, something I’ve learned is that.. Even if you put in your best effort and even if it’s not the result that you wanted, you should still, you know.. Take that, learn from it and be proud of it.. Because obviously, you know, you’re not always gonna be a 100% but at least if you know you put effort into something and you really tried at it, then you know that it’s something to be proud of.”
-Nilah DeJesus, Junior
“Um, one piece of advice that has really helped me get through my high school years was like knowing that failure is okay. Yes, it is a setback, but you can always overcome, like, taking an F on a grade. It doesn’t define who you are. Like, I’ve gotten multiple bad grades for high school but yeah, I still overcame that and I’m still doing good in school.. So, don’t ever give up on like.. your success and your education, basically.”
-Zhariya Hendricks, Senior
“..I think.. If I had to pick one.. It would probably be.. That… even if you, like, struggle your first two years of high school.. Or your first year of high school or you go through something, like, really, you can fully turn your high school years around.. Like your grades don’t define you. You could get bad grades your entire freshman year, and you can completely flip it and end up with a 3.5 GPA at the end of high school. Like, it’s just.. You have to put in the effort. It’s not… whether you’re smart enough.. Or you’re bad at math or reading, like, you just have to.. Put in effort, and that’s what gets you through high school.”
-Hannah Rich, Senior
