By Samantha Chen, Staff Writer
The transfer from middle school to highschool is a very different experience. As a freshman myself, I’ve experienced that there are definitely more people on a larger campus, but now in highschool, most people have to get used to block schedules while grades are also starting to matter more. As a result, there is a lot more stress. Also, the majority of the students didn’t or had limited access to lockers.
Many middle schools have around 800-900 students in the whole school, while Mills has around 1,220 students. Also, since everyone is on a new campus the layout and amount of people can be confusing. For example, since most underclassmen are graduates of Taylor Middle School, where there are more hills and a different layout, Mills is more flat with many more classrooms. All the buildings are also organized differently and now there are different halls for different subjects which all look very similar.
Something else that was different from middle school was the fact that we now have easy access to lockers. Though some schools did have lockers, many people ended up not getting lockers. Even the people who have had lockers didn’t have easy access to them and ended up not using them. Also, for most people in P.E, they are just getting to have their own lockers so they no longer have to share with someone else. Many people are also experiencing having bigger lockers and locker rooms with more space to move around.
One other thing that is very significant from the change from middle school to high school is grades and schedules. Now, grades are starting to matter and you need to pay more attention while being loaded with more work and classes. Classes normally in middle school are around 6 periods while we now have 7 periods. Since there are more classes, it means more homework. Before, in middle school, we were used to having barely any homework, to now having to spend an hour or two on completing homework. Also, instead of having every class every day like in middle school, students now have to adapt to block schedules. Going from having all the classes every day to only having it every other day (except on Monday where everyone has each class), can make it confusing as some people may try to attend the wrong classes.
Overall, Middle School is very different from High School. In middle school there was no easy access to lockers and there also is a larger campus. The students have to get used to different schedules and classes all while they have to worry about their grades. Many people will find this new experience anything from exciting to terrifying, it depends on the person.
