Freshman vs Senior: Struggles and Successes

Written by Alex Rak

High school is, without exception, a time of profound growth for students. Work becomes more vigorous, work habits must be developed, and communication becomes more and more of a necessity as time goes on. Friendships are made and broken, passions are created, and, somewhere along the line, students are tasked with deciding the course of their future. No pressure, right? If you aim to succinctly describe this period in your life with one word, change is most likely the first one that comes to mind. The vital period of growth, development, and creation wouldn’t be possible without change. While these changes occur throughout all four years of Upper School, the most personally significant changes are often during the freshman and senior years. While the lived experiences of freshmen and seniors are completely different, many themes of their struggles are remarkably similar: these students must come to terms with monumental differences in their environments — both in the present and in the future.

To explore these similarities, I interviewed three MVS students— two freshman and one senior— to shine a light on the difficulties that each grade is currently experiencing.

Question 1: What’s been on your mind? How have you spent your time recently?

Question 2: What struggles or changes do you think your grade is facing as a whole? 

Question 3: Let’s be a little more positive. How are you managing your stress? What are some recent successes you’re proud of?

Question 4: If you could tell something to all of the freshmen/seniors to help them through their year, what would you say?

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Charlie Fink, Freshman

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Question 1: When I spend my time normally I am just hanging out. I’m either talking with friends, playing games, doing homework, or watching a show. 

Question 2: I think a struggle my grade could be having is just moving into high school they pretty much have no teachers they had last year, so they may be struggling with just getting used to those new teachers and learning the expectations they have. However, I will say the free period definitely helps out a lot.

Question 3: Some stuff I am proud of this year is so far I am keeping all of my grades up and have had almost 0 missing assignments.

Question 4: I am not really sure I would just try to motivate them and try to keep their spirits up. 

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Jonathan Pickens, Freshman

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The thing that has been on my mind lately is predominantly schoolwork. I usually spend my time working on homework or planning my campaign for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, or as we like to call it LLS. 

As a grade, the freshman class struggles with time management, I, myself, am a prime example of this. I commonly find myself not getting my priorities straight and working on assignments that may not serve to be the best use of my time.

I believe I am handling my stress levels pretty well, just again with time management being a common issue, things pile up and I get stressed out. But overall, I think I handle it well. A recent success that I am proud of is a Model UN conference that I attended at the school that I feel I was well prepared for. No awards were given out as it was a pretend one to prepare us for the real thing, but I enjoyed it and to me, that is a win. 

You are doing great and good luck on your college application process and Aries!

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Mira Buerk, Senior

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The only thing that has been on my mind for the past month is college. I spent way too much time thinking about my Common App. I am a little worried that I will not pass my neuroscience class because I have not done any homework for it in two weeks. However, on the bright side, I feel very confident about some of my applications and I’m excited to hear back from the colleges.

I don’t think our grade has many large problems as of this moment. We used to have lots of grade/SAT/ACT score sharing, but after nagging people for a bit, it got better. I think we are worried about our Aries experience because it is a very valuable project, and we are not confident that it will go OK this year.

I am very proud to have submitted my November 1 applications. Now, I just need to get back to working on my actual homework. I am very grateful to Mrs. Roeth during this time. She has been extremely helpful throughout this whole process, college and otherwise. 

Bring pencils, your computer charger, and any other necessities to school every single day. Even if you don’t think you need them, you might, or someone around you might need them. The amount of connections I have made by lending a pencil, charger, or calculator to someone is remarkable. Lastly, don’t become a slacker now. It only gets harder. The most important thing is to develop good study skills during this time, so develop them! Do your work!

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