I remember my first day of school as if it were only yesterday: walking through the big, scary doors into center court, frantically searching for my Algebra I class, looking for anyone who appeared kind enough to direct me towards the math hall without pulling a “Freshman Friday” prank on me (if that’s even a thing). Fast forward two years and so much has changed—I am now the person who provides a freshman with directions on their first day of the school. Instead of being the timid underclassman who sat in the back of the Journalism class, I lead it.
In my first two years of high school, I admired and looked up to seniors with high aspirations who made it into schools like Yale University, University of Southern California, and UC Berkeley. On the other hand, I viewed juniors who regularly substituted their sleep with unhealthy amounts of Red Bull with complete and utter dread. However, now that I am a junior myself, I realize that my fears concerning junior year were ridiculous and exaggerated, and the stress that is felt by juniors is more often than not unwarranted.
Junior year is usually when the mass majority of students begin tackling Advanced Placement (AP) classes, which are the courses that are considered to be the root cause of the high levels of stress students experience. AP classes, as the name suggests, are courses that offer students advanced, college-level material and curriculum that count towards college credit, as well as a Grade Point Average (GPA) bump. To students hungry for inflated GPAs, AP classes are an enticing meal. However, along with the GPA bump and the college credit comes many hours of studying and work not only in school, but outside of the classroom as well.
While I do not speak for all students when I say this, from my experiences in my three AP classes, the hours of homework that students stay up all night to complete is more often than not assigned at the beginning of the week. Students are usually expected to have finished their work at either the end of the week, or several days after the homework was assigned. For example, AP United States History (APUSH) is a class that many juniors take and is often considered to be one of the most difficult and heaviest-loaded AP classes at Mills. Although there is a huge amount of work students must complete to be successful in this class, the vast majority of the work that is assigned is not due until several days—or even a week—after. This is often the case in my AP Environmental Science (APES) course and my AP Language and Composition course as well.
Though AP classes play a major role in contributing to high stress levels in many Mills students, competition over grades is another factor to be considered. While students regularly discuss grades all year round, as final exams draw near and students are busy finalizing their grades, the number of conversations concerning grades spike to higher levels. For example, students will frequently ask questions such as, “What’s your grade in this class?” in order to compete over who has the better grade. Some students go as far as to even ask about grade percentages—if two people are getting the same grade in a particular class, then they want to know who has the higher percentage. The competition over grades is pointless and often impacts student stress levels negatively.
Yet another insane competition Mills students enjoy participating in involves sleep—to be specific, who gets the least of it. Although I am not speaking for all students, many teenagers often procrastinate and put off work until the last minute. As a result, they get to bed as late as two or three in the morning, meaning that they only receive around four to five hours of sleep. While this is unhealthy and absolutely not something to be proud of, students boast about getting the minimal amount of rest and wear their sleep deprivation as if it were a badge of honor. The less they sleep, the harder a student must work, right? The competition over lack of sleep is utterly ridiculous and only causes students to become increasingly exhausted and stressed.
The amount of stress that junior year ruthlessly hurls at students is both abundant and unnecessary. Through my experiences involving AP courses and student competitions over grades and sleep, I feel it is unsurprising that so many juniors view this year as the worst out of their entire educational career. However, it is also important to remember that the majority of the stress is our own fault and could be easily relieved. If we could learn to—rather than competing and undermining all the hard work we put into school—congratulate one another for what we have worked to achieve, and (this is the real nail in the coffin) learn to manage our time properly, we would have a much easier time doing well in school.
