Being a freshman marks the reaching of a milestone. It is a testament to having passed middle school, and it marks your advancement into high school. Here, you’ll begin the learning experience that prepares you for college, offers you more freedom to pursue your interests, and most importantly, serves as the inspiration for Euphoria.
However, many freshmen can’t help but feel daunted by what lies ahead for them, including deciding on the courses they will take next year.
Your first attempt to prepare to make these course selections occurs in November and December. You check the curriculum bulletin to get a sense of what classes will be available to you as a sophomore in the very distant future. Reading the bulletin leaves you feeling accomplished for being so responsible about your future. However, you learn nothing from this experience (except that you are only required to take one year of a second language) and trust that your guidance counselor will clear everything up for you when the time comes.
“Your grades only matter in high school.”
That’s what you told yourself after bombing that math test in seventh grade, and now it’s come back to haunt you. To put it lightly, your grades haven’t been the best so far, and that’s partly due to your lack of participation in class. So, you set out to change that by challenging yourself to raise your hand a whole two times in Global I. By the end of the period, your arm is exhausted from being up all class, as it isn’t used to that kind of activity, but you are satisfied with your participation. You treat yourself to an unproductive free period later that day.
You also spend a good portion of your time in the following weeks trying to figure out what in the world Global Perspectives is and gauging the difficulty level of AP European History. Additionally, you’ll find yourself going through every possible course combination in a search to find the perfect arrangement that will challenge you enough academically yet stay within your self-imposed limit of two hours of homework/studying a night. However, this proves to be a fruitless search.
You console yourself by thinking about the new electives you’ll be able to take next year. However, those who haven’t taken Health 10 yet may feel disappointed by having to share a class with freshmen.
As your school life progresses, everything starts to go by in a blur. All of a sudden, the Honors English Placement Exam is announced, and you need to appear at 7:30 in the morning, your recommendations are then released on Infinite Campus, and guidance counselors are urging you to make course selection appointments with them.
Before you know it, the dreaded course selection Google Form created by the Guidance Department is in front of you. Of course, you procrastinate filling it out, so you end up doing it the night before it is due. It’s an anxiety-riddled process in which you carefully avoid hitting the shiny submit button, instead opting to check your answers again and again and again, until you can’t stand to look at the form anymore. Finally, you close your eyes, hit submit, and hope that you get more than one free period a cycle as a sophomore.
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