Hey guys! in today's video,
I'll be giving some tips to those of you who are going into your first year of high school
and there will be three main parts to this.
So, the first section is the main differences between middle school and high school.
Next are what to expect on your first day and throughout the rest of the year.
And lastly just general tips for things to do and not to do.
So first of all, the main difference between middle school in high school is that in high school you get a lot more
Independence in general. For example, you get a lot more choices in
choosing your classes. You actually have the ability to choose your classes and you can choose the subject and the
difficulty level. You might also have a completely new set of people who you go to school with.
I can't really help you with this since the way the school zones are drawn out in my district. There's pretty much
exact same people went to my middle school at high school.
You also get more options for extracurriculars like clubs, sports,
volunteering and there are a lot more school events
Like sports events and dances. The whole atmosphere of school also gets quite a bit more competitive,
especially in academics and sports
since when you're in high school your grades matter for applying to college and you could
get recruited to college sports. As far as the difficulty
academically goes, I find that the regular level classes at high school are
barely more difficult than middle school classes. But in high school, you do get more options for honors and AP classes.
These are harder than regular classes and middle school classes.
It's difficult to quantify how difficult something is
but if you feel that you can handle it definitely try a few out and see what they feel like.
What to expect on your first day is
in your classes, it's pretty low-key. You just get your syllabus, meet your teacher and classmates.
The only supplies you'll need are a pen, a pencil, a couple sheets of binder paper maybe, and
If you are taking gym, make sure to bring your gym clothes.
Lunch and the other social times like a brunch if you have that will probably be the most
stressful part of your school day, although I wouldn't really consider them stressful at all.
It's not at all like they seem in weird teen movies and shows and
things like that. Like it's not at all like Mean Girls.
Basically, what you want to do is if you already have friends at your school, arrange to meet up and have lunch together and if not,
just quickly talk to someone who sits next to you in the period before lunch and go eat lunch with them.
You'll make friends later on and you can find your lunch squad as the year progresses.
Also, don't worry too much about freshman hazing or anything of that type.
No upperclassmen are going to try to throw you into a locker or beat you up. Speaking as a rising junior,
most of us just view freshmen as people who are two years younger than us.
Obviously there are a few mean people in every grade but as a general rule,
I've never even seen freshman hazing happen
So it's not a huge concern. And here's what you can expect throughout the entire school year:
For most classes things will start off pretty easy
since teachers understand that you're new to high school and you're just getting used to things.
Especially if you're taking mostly classes that are only freshman.
After maybe a month or so,
it depends on the class again, things will pick up as far as the pace of
lessons, how many tests you have, how much homework you have.
It'll all pick up speed to the normal rhythm of high school. As far as the whole social aspect goes,
it really depends on the person; how outgoing you are, how much you participate in school events, or extracurriculars.
But trust me,
usually,
everything will work out just fine and you'll find your true friends.
The way that high school works out depends a lot on
you as a person.
So your personality, what your experiences were like in middle school,
how well you deal academically with things based on what you've learned in the past.
So I can't really give a definite guide to this is exactly when everything will happen and how.
But if you do have questions about my own personal experience, feel free to DM me on Instagram. It'll be linked in the description.
And now for general advice! My number one tip,
which I felt helped me the most steering my sophomore year, was to try out a lot of extracurriculars.
So try out any club you think you might even be remotely interested,
Go out for a sport.
I recommend doing cross-country or track, not biased in any way. The reason I recommend this is as a
freshman, you're generally less busy than you are throughout the other years of high school. So it's a great time to try new things,
figure out what you're interested in, and possibly set yourself up to get a leadership position when you're in the later years of high school.
It's also a good way to meet new people who have some similar interests as you and make friends.
And you don't have to limit yourself to activities offered at your school.
For example, I started making YouTube videos in my freshman year and look where we are now!
It might seem like a lot of extracurriculars when you first join all of them
but the important thing is that you don't have to stay in all of them. Once you get a feel for each activity,
cut out the ones that you don't actually enjoy and start focusing more on the ones that you like the most. Two kind of
warning signs about this: make sure you cut out enough things that you aren't overloading your schedule.
Also, don't do things just so you can put them on a college application.
First of all, it's better to have depth in one or two things that you really like than it is to be
generally okay at a surface level at everything.
Secondly, high school is not just meant to get you to college. It's also a time in your life
so why would you waste your life on things that you don't actually care about? I spent a long time on that one
but my second tip would be to develop good
academic habits during your freshman year.
So that includes organization, doing your homework, studying, time management,
planning, all of the kind of stuff that I address a lot on my channel. Freshman year is a good time to
build a solid foundation and get into the habit of
academic skills like studying for tests farther advanced than the night before,
writing everything in a planner,
having an organizational system for your papers, even really basic things like do all of your homework and don't cheat on tests.
Also, freshman year classes tend to be easier than all of the other years so it's a good time to test out which
planning, note-taking,
organizational strategies work best for you. Pretty much my entire channel is about this topic
so I'll put some videos that I especially recommend in the description.
They're all about the basic skills of organization and planning and studying and all this kind of stuff.
My next tip would be to make a loose plan for the rest of high school.
So this would mostly be a course plan
that would give you enough credits to graduate high school and
you can probably ask your school counseling department for help with this if you need help.
You don't need to worry too much about tailoring it to a specific major or a school or a career
since you'll change as a person from
freshman year to when you're going to college. And similarly, your plans for the future will change as well so
you don't have to stick to this plan and definitely change it as you go.
Kind of an obvious tip, but don't be obnoxious.
Even in high school, life is still life. It's the same as it worked middle school and outside of school.
Don't be rude to other people. Don't stand in the middle of the hallway and block people from walking.
This kind of ties into the previous tip, but
try to be nice and make friends with upperclassmen if you can.
Most upperclassmen will be nice to you unless you're a really annoying obnoxious freshman.
They can give you tips about how things usually go at your school.
So for example how teachers are and how to act around them or
the way that things work in certain classes.
I'm not sure how many of you have yet to pick your freshman year classes
but this also applies to picking your classes in future years as well. This is the way I recommend doing it
First of all, refer to the course plan that you made which I mentioned earlier on in the video and
within that template, ask your current teachers in each subject
what level of difficulty they'd recommend you take so that involves choosing between
AP, honors, regular, accelerated if you have that in your school. The way that social life works really depends on
you and your particular friend group.
It's really difficult to explain the whole making friends things and it really also depends on your personality.
But just trust in the process that things will be fine in the end. A few tips that apply to everyone though:
you definitely can date and go out and
do all of that fun stuff, even get involved in drama if you want to, but if
anything starts to negatively impact your physical or mental health, if it's impacting your performance in academics
or the extracurriculars that you do, it's not good to let that stay in your life.
Another thing is being popular seems cool, but
it's really not worth it if you have to sacrifice things that you actually care more about.
Being popular or having a certain reputation will only last for the four years that you're in high school.
It's really not worth it over
friends that you really care about that could be your friends for your whole life or
things like
extracurriculars or academics, to mention again, that can influence the path of your life.
Something that I wish that I had done more was attend the events hosted at your school.
You only get to be a high schooler for four years of your life. I mean,
hopefully.
Please don't become a super senior.
So anyways, it's better to experience those things that are you know, truly once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Of course, you don't have to if you really think you don't want to but maybe--
maybe reconsider that you don't want to because maybe you do! In general, in freshman year,
you want to set yourself up to succeed in the later years of high school
so don't start doing illegal things, get your academic habits down pat,
Pat your GPA with those easier freshman year classes, make friends, have fun with your life!
You'll be just fine.
Good luck. And if you need more advice again, feel free to send me an ask on tumblr or a DM me on Instagram.
I will have everything linked down below.
I hope you found this video helpful and I'll link some more tips on screen and in the description.
My Tumblr and Instagram are @studyquill if you want to check that out. I post new videos every Friday.
See you next time!