The thought of transitioning from middle school to high school can sound scary and life-changing. Now, the freshmen at AHS have completed a whole semester of high school for the first time! Some freshmen have described the past semester as unexpected, while others were not surprised at all.

“I thought the transition would be really bad,” freshman Emily Xu described. “I thought we would have a bunch of pop quizzes and tests.” Freshman Karena Seto agreed that high school sounded extremely difficult before. “I heard from my cousin that it’d be stressful because you won’t know half of the people.” Along with struggles with academics, it was also commonly thought that the huge size of AHS’ campus would be threatening. “I thought I would get lost everyday,” freshman Matthew Choi admitted. “But I did a lot of band stuff during the summer at the school, so I got to meet new people and get familiar with the campus.”

However, others predicted that high school would be just as easy as middle school. “The mindset I had was that the first day of middle school would be like the first day of high school,” freshman Ian Lau explained. “And it pretty much was the same thing. That’s why I thought the transition would be easy.”

But actually, entering high school exceeded most freshmen’s expectations. “The transition isn’t that bad,” Emily said. “Most of the teachers are pretty helpful, and I get to class on time.” Freshman Audrey Liu also stated that high school is easy because it’s fun to meet more people and make new friends. “Middle school was harder than high school for me,” freshman Kyle Chen confessed.

But for others, high school is not a piece of cake. “The transition is terrible,” freshman Anvitha Kosuri exclaimed. “First of all, you get so many tests, quizzes, stress, and pressure all on the first week.” Freshman Yana Verma stated that it feels like she has “fifty million things piled up” on her. “Throughout the year, the workload doesn’t get easier, but school gets more bearable and you kind of feel numb to the stress.”

“The hard part about high school is feeling good all the time,” Yana continued. She advised her middle school self to “try your hardest, and don’t care so much about other people. You don’t have to suppress your emotions, and don’t let it affect your mind.” She further explained, “This would’ve made me more mentally healthy.” When asked whether she liked middle school or high school better, Emily answered, “Middle school is better so far because it’s smaller, and I know everybody. Whereas here, I don’t know a lot of people.” Matthew agreed that before, he knew everybody better, but now he has “drifted a lot” from his past friends.

Everybody has a different experience with entering high school, but they can all agree that it is a huge milestone in their lives. Great job surviving the first semester freshmen, and keep it up in the second!