Jess Peterson, Staff Editor
It’s a well-known fact that junior year is the hardest academic year of high school. Being constantly scrutinized by peers, teachers, and college admins can be very trying on its own, not even calculating the added stress of trying to balance hours of schoolwork with holding down a stable job and maintaining a healthy social life.
According to a study EdWeek.org, high school teachers assign an average of 3.5 hours of homework a week per class. And yet, we’re expected work a part-time job on the side, get eight hours of sleep, and just enjoy our time being high school. There is literally not enough time in the day.
Being a junior that is working a part time job myself, I can confidently attest that this has been the most overwhelming year that I have experienced in my school career. I keep finding myself overwhelmed purely at the idea that once you start work, you do not stop until you’re sixties when you are old enough to retire. You’re pretty much signing your life away. That is an incredibly big step and decision for a sixteen year old to make, and yet we are forced to make it if we want any sort of independence. That idea in itself is enough to cause even the most mentally-stable person anxiety. I have yet to learn how to handle all the newfound responsibility that I have recently taken on. I can honestly say that I have already had three breakdowns because I cannot find enough time in the day to get everything done. I have also found myself trying to rush my school work or even put it off until advisory the next morning because I am simply too tired to even focus on the work. There is just so much going on in my life that I find myself incredibly stressed out.
I only work a maximum of eight hours a week at Taunton Press and am also currently looking for a second job. Compared to a lot of other people, that is nothing. But on top of a six hour school day filled with advanced placement and honors classes, it can get really challenging to stay on top of everything. In what is considered to be the most important year of high school, spreading yourself thin is one of the worst things you could possibly do and yet that is exactly what I seem to be doing.
In all honesty, I think that the biggest challenge is being stuck in between still being a kid and being an adult. Junior year is that time that there is so much responsibility with school, work, being a new driver and just wanting to grow up. You want to be able to support yourself. People finally treat you like you’re older and able to comprehend everything. While that is all well and good, at the same time, you’re still a kid and you want to act that way. You just find yourself caught in a constant limbo of not knowing how to behave or what to prioritize.
Slowly, I have started to learn that I have to utilize every free moment I have. My free
periods in school have turned instead from a social event to an all-out studyfest. This way I get the majority of my work done before I even get out of school. That allows me to be able to focus solely on work and not be constantly worrying about all the leftover homework I have to when I get home.
Despite constantly being on the go and feeling as though I never have time to myself anymore, it isn’t all that bad. The sudden lack of time has taught me that I have to take advantage of the time that I do have free. It has made me really appreciate my friends and the chances that I do get to spend with them. While junior year is stuck right in that awkward transition between childhood and adulthood, I feel like I have at least found my place for the moment. I no longer have this ominous presence nagging at me, reminding me to get everything together and get a job. On top of that, it’s an amazing feeling to be done with work at the end of the week or even just when I get some small task done around the office. It’s a sense of growing up and feeling accomplished.
The key to keeping everything together is time management and sacrifice. Sometimes you just cannot do everything. Sometimes you have to forgo hanging out with friends. Sometimes a paper might be late. But that’s okay because it is alright to occasionally make the wrong decision. This is the time where we are able to make mistakes. You just have to learn from them. Overtime, after all the mistakes and stress, you will be able to figure out how to balance life.
Photo Credit; tinybuddah.com
