Going back to school is just as scary as it seems – by Gabrielle Jenkins

Everyone sees the back to school commercials, some starting as early as mid-July. The companies play the fast-paced, up-beat music, with bright colors, trumpets blaring and anything else they could possibly think of to get people excited for the back to school season. Youtubers and other types of social media influencers make videos, posts, sponsorships and any other kind of content they can create to raise  their viewership or popularity. But the realities of these promotions are far different. For some, all the hype you might feel before going back to school completely disappears after about the first week. The classes, the teachers, the people, the stress, it all comes rushing back, and that’s only the beginning.

It is more than okay if you like school. But for others, it just isn’t that fun. For starters, your schedule can either give you the best school year of your life or the worst one. It seems as if most of the time, you end up with a bad schedule. For example, if you don’t have any friends in your classes and you miss a day, you’re going to have a hard time catching up. Who are you going to ask about what you missed? The random kid beside you who barely knows your name? They probably don’t want to be bothered with helping you catch up, nor do they probably even care. Not having friends in your classes just makes them harder to endure. You don’t have anybody to work with when you do partner or group work. Then you get stuck with someone you don’t know, or worse  you get placed in the center of a group of people who are all already friends and you stick out like a sore thumb.

West Forsyth is a huge school, accommodating about 2,500 kids. When the bell rings for class change, this means around 2,500 different people are all going to many different places at the same time. The breezeways and grass are way too crowded. Some people like to walk through the breezeways so slowly like it’s a day at the park. These people need to get out of the way! One tardy is after school detention, and nobody wants to do that.

This is high school. It is nearly impossible to go through it without finding people who annoy you or bother you. Once school starts, we have to be around these people all the time, especially if you have classes with them. The general atmosphere some teenagers create is enough to make you want to go home. The childish activities are nauseating. There’s noise everywhere, and people are constantly bumping into each other. It’s just too much going on.

When school starts back, we as students, essentially lose our freedom. Out of the 24 hours in a day that we are given, we spend about eight of them at school, getting ready for school or traveling to and from school. This doesn’t even include the time we use for homework, extracurriculars inside and outside of school or time for household chores. So what time is left for us? The time remaining after we finish up with all of our commitments is limited. Which is why most teenagers don’t get much sleep at night. What other time are we supposed to use to unwind and relax?

The bad schedules, the waking up early, the loss of time, the lack of sleep and the minimal social interaction with friends causes stress. Many parents and other adults don’t believe we should be stressed, but how are we supposed to avoid it? Keeping up with everything is draining. For some of us, everything involving school causes stress. In all honesty, that’s the biggest reason why going back to school isn’t favorable. It’s simply unenjoyable. The next time you’re sitting on your couch doing nothing, waiting for the day school starts back again, I urge you to think about how much you won’t be able to do once it does start. It might motivate you to get up and truly enjoy the rest of your summer.

Going back to school is not as scary as it seems – by Olivia Pratapas

When the word “school” comes out of someone’s mouth, it causes most of us to shed tears of dread. The thought is usually undesired, but for some, it means getting back on a set schedule, which can be a positive thing. 

Like most of my peers, I dread going back to school. All I can think about is how I’m going to find the time to do my homework. As a student-athlete with practices in Greensboro twice a week that end around 9 p.m., I don’t get home until 10. However,  I’ve come to the realization that even though it is stressful at times, having school as a daily aspect to my routine can help me create structure and feel like I have completed a lot throughout the day. 

An article on ExaminedExistence.com stated that “having structure is important because it sets the need to regularly schedule your day ahead of time.” When you set yourself to do this, you already know what you will be doing every day  and what you have next on your schedule. Having structure can also help you stay on track to get all of your homework done right after school as opposed to wasting time checking all of your social media accounts to see what’s happening. We have to come to the realization that prioritizing more essential things over stuff we do everyday, like check our phones every so often, can save us time as well as realize that the Snapchat we didn’t open isn’t going anywhere.

For me, having structure is like a mental planner that lets me know what to do. I wake up at 7:30 a.m., get ready for the day and go to school. Once school is over, you’ll rarely find me hanging out and catching up with my friends on how their day went. Instead, I walk to my car and go home for a little while to grab a snack before I go to soccer practice. Having a routine helps me because I know what I need to get done so I can have time to relax.

In high school we are planning out the lives ahead of us and getting ready for that next step. Once we graduate from college, the real world hits us and some of us will be lost, not knowing what to do without the everyday school schedule, or they will think that without school, they will have so much time in their lives to live in the moment and end up doing wild things.

Once you’ve experienced a structured setting, you may be able to manage your time more wisely instead of wasting it on things that are irrelevant. School helps in this way by making students get to class at a certain time as well as assigning work and projects to be turned in on a set date. Structure doesn’t appeal to everyone, but when you realize the benefits that it can have for you in any way, you might want to adjust to the change.