Review: Expectation vs. reality of the high school

Will Eikenbary, Journalism Hallway Coordinator

August 30, 2017

It’s that time of the year again. School’s started, and for most of you it’s back to the daily grind of waking up at 7:30 and barely making it into class before the bell rings. But, soul-crushingly boring calculus lecture aside, this time of the year is very exciting for lots of new students, particularly freshmen. Going into a new school building itself can be daunting for newcomers, but combine that with the pressure surrounding high school, and the stress starts to set in for students that haven’t experienced it before. I sat down to talk with some freshman including Patrick Boyce, Lily Goc, and Isaiah Parker, about their thoughts of their first week of high school.

Boyce says that he is so far really enjoying the high school experience.

“I was looking forward to making more choices and having more freedom,” Boyce said. “[I] expected it to be a lot harder than it actually was. There’s a lot more free time [at the high school] compared to the middle school.”

Some of the expectations surrounding the new building they had turned out to be different.

“I expected to get lost a lot,” Goc said. “I expected the building to feel a lot more confusing.”

Many of these freshman are excited for the classes and extracurriculars offered at the high school.

“[I’m] looking forward to getting better at math, and excited to do marching band,” Parker said.

Freshman Connor Anderson is also excited for his experiences to come in high school at Westside. Anderson moved to Westside from Beveridge Middle School this year so that he could focus on swimming for the Westside swim team. He says that he likes classes so far.

“In general the classes are a lot harder, but I like high school more[than middle school],” Anderson said. “I like the open class periods to have school time to finish homework. Plus, the food isn’t as garbage as I thought it would be. It’s good.”

According to these freshman, high school isn’t as bad as what they had expected it to be. Getting to know the school wasn’t that hard and it’s very interesting to see the viewpoint of someone who hasn’t ever experienced something quite like high school before.