My Sophomore Year in a Nutshell | Student Life

This year was honestly such a crazy year.

I have been jam-packed with after-school activities piled onto each other, making school basically my second home since I stay until 8 pm almost every day. I am a sophomore this year and honestly, this year was so much better than last year, sorry freshmen. High school just felt so much more familiar and I knew what I was doing, so I knew which directions to take.

High school is great, but the stress is crazy and you really need to find your coping mechanism. I am the person that stresses themselves out and I am always never happy with what I come out with.

My parents don’t put pressure on me because they know I try my best, but I am always pushing and spreading myself way too thin. I stack my after school activities and I hate resting. Mom says I need to take a breather but it makes me so nervous to not be doing something productive - I can’t even take a nap without feeling overly anxious.

I also tend to always compare myself to others and I struggle with seeing how hard I’m trying. I get overly stressed and I think I have bad time management, but I have realized over time that stress does nothing and everything will eventually work out.

I have appreciated the coping mechanisms that I found through the years and I think they work extremely well. Going to the gym makes me feel so much better and happier if I am stressed because I can let everything out and I’m being productive while doing it. Playing the piano also helps me a lot when I’m stressed and lets me leave everything behind so I can just focus on my music. Another thing everyone should realize is that your friends are always there for you.

As stressed as everyone may be, your friends will be able to relate and listen to all your rants, which really helps. Although not everything this year went downhill, I have a lot of highlights.

Some highlights from the year include the friends I’ve made, getting my first AP exam over with, and feeling like I can actually handle high school.

Starting with my first highlight, I realized that I shouldn’t be scared about making friends, since I am generally a super shy person, and I have actually gotten to know some really great people by just putting myself out there when I had the chance. All that ran through my head at those moments was “if I mess this up I’ll probably never see them again.” The thing was that I did see them again because it actually worked out and I was able to make some new friends.

On to my second point: As a sophomore, I could only take one AP class and of course, it had to be AP World.

Best decision of my life.

Yes, it was one of the most stressful situations ever and yes, I cried 5 times in the span of four days, but yes it was such a relief to be done and I was so proud of myself for making it through. I loved the class so much and I normally don’t even like history. I’m more of a science gal, but it was so amazing and different and it made me think about maybe my interests are not what I thought they were.

In relation to all the stress that came with this class, I can talk about high school and how much of a blast it is when you get the hang of it. There are times where I hate school and I just want to go home and sleep, instead of during math class, but other days I feel so great at school and I actually enjoy it.

Let’s see what happens next year. I am absolutely dreading it. Props to the rising seniors for making it through and prayers for the class of 2021.

Junior year has nothing on us.