Time to start fresh: 10 ways to make your first year count

As a 15-year-old going into her sophomore year of high school, I know that adjusting to a new environment is hard. There are new people, new teachers, new class material, and more. Here are 7 tips to help you make the most out of your freshman year of high school. 

1. Sports and Extracurriculars

Trying a sport or extracurricular every season can be overwhelming, especially when you’re adjusting to a new school year with new expectations. That is why aiming to participate in just one new extracurricular or activity for the fall is a perfect in between because it sets a tone for the school year and helps you form new connections early on.

In high school, fall sports tryouts and practice usually begin at least a week before school actually starts. This means that you get a head start, so use that to your advantage! With this you are given the chance to start conversations before school commences and develop those connections to their fullest over time. Placing yourself in an environment surrounded with people with your skill set and curiosity with consistent meetings and practices will set you up for countless opportunities to spark conversations.

In addition, many high school activities start to integrate different grades together so that you can be surrounded by people from all different backgrounds and experiences. Whether you’re bonding over tough sports drills, rehearsing lines in plays, or simply giving a compliment to someone next to you, these shared experiences can spark new and early connections that set you up for the rest of your high school career. 

2. Friendships and Relationships

The friendship dynamic is a rocky road all throughout life, but especially in high school. It’s a new period of life, when people start to fall into who they want to become as they get older. One study conducted shows that only roughly 1% of friendships originating in middle school remain intact by senior year. Although it sounds harsh, it’s a completely normal and healthy sign of change. It is also perfectly normal to feel sad about these relationships ending, but it is important to know that the loss of old bonds does not mean that something went wrong, it means that everyone is growing into themselves.

My advice is to avoid chasing relationships you have outgrown, and invest in ones that meet you where you are or where you want to be. These people might share the same values as you, have experiences similar to what you have lived through, or they could be nothing like you but you’re interested in similar things. The important thing is finding the people who support you and encourage you to stay true to yourself.

It’s important to keep in mind that even if a friendship is not instant or doesn’t go beyond surface level, knowing one face in every classroom changes how you feel walking in. That is why making it a goal to develop at least one connection or at minimum an acquaintance in each class is essential to starting your years at high school. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone but you certainly don’t have to be alone!

3. Take It Slow

Let yourself be a beginner. Making mistakes is half of the process. Although it sounds awkward, this is when you truly learn how to learn and process unfamiliar experiences. Despite their intention to help students explore options they may have not considered, education systems can unintentionally put pressure and an unrealistic standard on what stage in life you should be and how a person should define success. My advice is that if these ideals do not align with who you want to be, then do not stress or put too much effort into fitting into that. Use this time to figure out what inspires you and what makes you happy because this is actually one of the only times in life that you don’t have to have it all figured out. Focus on one or two things that you are genuinely curious or passionate about and not just what looks impressive to colleges or other organizations. Remember, you are more than just a student; you are a human being first and being a well-rounded individual is important for developing who you want to become. 

4. Making Time For You

Completing work is important but having a balanced schedule and overall life is essential when introducing a new part of your academic career. Being able to determine the amount of effort you want to put into each assignment and not overbearing yourself with work is important because it prevents burnout. It’s important to remember that your mental, physical, and social well being is a lot more important than a simple assignment or project. Something that got me through my 9th grade year was taking mental health days when school got overwhelming. I would follow the school schedule from home digitally, checking Google Classroom and staying in touch with my teachers, while taking frequent breaks and doing things that comfort me. 

5. Deadlines and Procrastination

Racing through school, and moments in general, means that you miss the lessons they offer. Keeping this in mind, when you wait to complete things right before the deadline you end up rushing and simply scratching the surface which prevents you from creating higher quality work. Procrastination does not do you any favors in high school and it creates unnecessary stress. Once you get to freshman year, failing to complete assignments is not an option. It almost always results in either a fail or an incomplete in the grade book until you eventually have to do it. As much as scrolling on social media for hours on end or hanging out with your friends until late at night is fun, it is not always in your best interest for the long run.

One way that I kept my sleep, mood, and focus at bay while also finding time to fit in what I loved doing, was to start early and split the workload into manageable chunks by day. I did this by tracking these bits with my planner and creating different timed intervals to work on it each day. Working on an essay for 30 minutes a day is a lot more attainable than trying to write an entire essay for 3 hours straight right before the deadline. 

6. Tools and Resources

Another important resource to use when entering your freshman year if you have not already used it, is a daily or assignment planner. The overall importance of planners is to keep your upcoming due dates, assessments, and meetings organized and all in one place. Being able to visualize all of my tasks and materials in an aesthetically pleasing way kept me on track and made sure that I never turned in an assignment late throughout the school year. The main type of planners I used were daily planners and assignment planners but there are some major differences and choosing them depends on preference. 

Daily planners help with management of your schedule, priorities, or to-do lists on a day to day basis. This can help you regulate and keep track of your busy schedule while also finding space to make time for yourself. A good product that comes with all of these features is the Undated Daily Planner from the Asten Store on Amazon. It has a bullet point space for 5 of your priorities, 8 tasks, a daily schedule, water intake, a space to write additional notes, thick non-bleed paper for pen or markers, and two pockets in the back for storage. 

While the daily planner follows your schedule day by day, an assignment planner only focuses on specific classes and assigned work to complete. The one I use is the Full Year Student Assignment Planner from the Elan Publishing Company on Amazon. This assignment planner has daily planning pages with space for 7 subjects per day and an extracurricular box below, home study schedules for every day of the week including weekends, overview planning for three months, a place to input your schedule for each semester, grade recording sheets to document the grades received on assessments, goal statements and life skill sections to focus on academic and career development, and a place to write down contacts! Overall, the assignment planner gave me the opportunity to keep track of all my tasks, remind me of upcoming assessments, and helped me determine the time I wanted to spend on each assignment.

Another tool that was helpful was Google Calendar. I used it to follow my weekly class cycle while keeping track of my personalized tasks and appointments.  

7. Healthy Relationships With Staff

Having a teacher or faculty within the school to communicate with when times get difficult helped me push through hard moments. The same way our friends can offer advice that our parents usually can’t, teachers or faculty can serve as guides in academic environments. One of my biggest passions in life is art and because I spent so much time in the art room, I grew to converse and confide in my art teacher with things outside of the subject. Even though he couldn’t exactly break down a math problem with me step by step, he offered many perspectives and opinions that I would have never thought about otherwise. A good relationship with a teacher can make you feel less alone in a new environment and because of the age difference, they can offer advice based on experiences that your peers have not gone through yet. 

There are millions of articles and blogs with tips for students starting their freshman year of high school but the important thing to note is that you can only control yourself and your own emotions. Things happen! What is, becomes what was, but the one thing that can always stay the same is that you are constantly working every day to be better than you were yesterday. That is how I got through my freshman year of high school; one day at a time.