Keeping up with the Freshmen

This year’s freshmen offer a compelling new perspective on their experiences and adjustments in high school so far. With interesting views on teachers and school activities, all eight freshmen we asked told us their thoughts on their experience so far at Hastings High School.

According to the freshmen, high school has proven to be quite different from middle school. “There’s a lot more freedom in high school and the teachers don’t really care as much if you’re on your phone,” said Eden Goldman-Wetzler. Shaun Young also mentioned that newfound freedom: “we can use our phones.”

New freshmen means new opinions for teachers, and asking freshmen about their favorite teachers resulted in varied responses. “I don’t know, maybe Mr. Conwisar,” said Andrew Rizzo. Other teachers such as Mr. Lopez, Ms. Barenfeld, Mr. Callagy, Ms. Thompson, and Ms. Brown were also mentioned as favorites.

A first pep rally is also part of the freshman experience, and the opinions were all very different. Goldman-Wetzler thought that “it was kind of a flop,” while Young said “it was fun [and] cross country [performance] was the best.” 

The clubs and sports available at the high school are often exciting new experiences to try. Many freshmen expressed interest in the high school’s wide selection of extracurricular activities. “I go to Astronomy Club,” said Adela Mihalcescu. Some also had interests in the sports offered, and lacrosse and volleyball were some of the most popular sports mentioned.

But with more freedom comes more responsibility. As students go into high school there is both more work and increased stress. The freshmen reflected on their workload and new struggles that recently arose after the start of high school. “My work, well there’s a lot more of it, and it’s just a lot of information,” said Addie Lew. Mihalcescu expressed her feelings concerning the block schedule. “For some reason I find it a lot less stressful than the homework situation because we have two days.” Freshmen said that some of their biggest struggle were finding where to eat lunch and dealing with time management.

As expressed by many of this year’s freshmen, high school was an immense and difficult transition, but now many said  they were enjoying their experience more.  All freshmen interviewed said that they enjoy high school more than middle school, and mostly all said that the new experiences and teachers were their favorite parts.