Junior year…. The year of tears, lack of sleep, endless piles of homework, a never-ending to-do list, and the last chance to impress colleges. At least that’s what everybody is warned of as they begin the year. Although I might be the outlier, I think that junior year has been an overall enjoyable experience and not nearly as stressful as it is made out to be.
To give some context, I am taking a relatively full course load, with three APs and two honors classes: AP U.S History, AP Literature, AP Psychology, Honors Analysis, and Honors Physics. First of all, the apprehension towards AP classes needs to be taken away. They’re often the same work as a regular class with an added three points to your grade. With the added benefit of the class looking good on a college resume, any fear of whether or not I should’ve taken APs has vanished. (My honors classes are significantly harder and more challenging than my APs)
My homework is also entirely manageable. If you’ve ever seen me stressed at school over homework, it’s not because I had hours of homework to do the night before and just couldn’t get it all done, it’s because I thought it would be better to take a nap and mindlessly scroll on my phone before doing my work the night before.
I’m not going to lie and say that I’m never stressed about various aspects of school, but even when I am stressed, junior year is one of the most socially active years of my life. Being able to drive, having a fun friend group, and being more involved in school activities have let me enjoy junior year and forget about any singular bad grade or deadline.
Beyond school, junior year has surely had events, or maybe mishaps, that were not ideal. Between a couple of car accidents and some embarrassing photojournalistic evidence being spread around, there have been moments when I thought that my life could never get worse. But those moments are the ones that have given me the most perspective and made me realize the saying, “In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy,” is very real.
Of course, I know it’s extra to put a motivational quote in the middle of a story about a year in high school (I was extremely embarrassed as I typed that into the story) but I think it’s an important thing to think about when navigating through this year. People often only remember the bad things about their experiences. In fact, I learned in AP Psychology that even if something was completely enjoyable, if there was a small bit of pain at the very end, that is the only part that people will remember. I think that many juniors tell underclassmen about how awful this year has been because the last things that they remember are finals, AP tests, and stressing about college, but they forget to include all the enjoyable aspects of the year.
So, as a junior with one quarter left until she’s a senior, I think that I went into this year with very low expectations, and came out realizing that it wasn’t as torturous as I was preparing myself for. I thought that my life would be consumed with school and I would never be able to do all the things that I wanted to do, but it was anything but that. If anybody is reading this and wondering what to expect from this year, go into it expecting to have nights where you are going to bed around midnight and still have homework, but also nights where you can go out with friends or have some time for yourself without worrying about school.
For most of this year, I kept telling people that I couldn’t believe that there were only a couple more years left of high school, that I was not ready to go to college, live without my parents, or decide what I want to do in life. But recently, I’ve realized that if you don’t constantly worry about the future and just focus on what is currently happening, everything becomes easier. Of course, there will be a time when I will have to do all those daunting things that I’m worried about, and while I might not be ready to do those things now, when the time comes I think I’ll be more than prepared.
In conclusion, (I recognize that I began to ramble toward the end), there were tears, and nights where I got less than five hours of sleep, and homework, and things I had to do, and pressure to do everything in my power to impress admissions officers, in truth, I don’t think there’s any way to avoid all of that. But, if you take opportunities to make those things more fun and to do things outside of classes, the year will not be anywhere as near awful as many say it is.
