After a long first quarter, I’m sure everyone is tired and doing anything they can just to get through the following weeks. While most of us are used to this throughout our years of being raptors, the freshmen are not. Most of them come from different middle schools with varying amounts of workloads so it was unsafe to say they have all had the same adjustment experiences. This is why I decided to pick their brains to see just how well they had been holding up. A survey was sent out to the entire Class of 2029 and participants were asked to rate their first quarter on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being awful and 5 being amazing. To my surprise, as responses started coming in there were very few that rated their first quarter a 1 or 2. Let’s dive into some specific responses!
One of the first responders started off super positive by rating their experience a 4 and justifying it by saying, “Good grades and made amazing friends.” It is a good sign that this student has been able to excel in their classes and, on top of that, find some amazing new friends! I think this is the ideal goal for a freshman going into high school, and it was definitely accomplished by this person. I hope that this student is able to maintain this positive mindset throughout the year and continue to succeed. Overall, what an amazing first response to receive!
Next up we have someone who gave their first quarter a 3 and said “The first quarter was fine, but my motivation was at a pretty low level.” As a senior this year I would have to agree with this response and I can definitely relate to the low motivation part of this response. This year has been tedious, especially as we are all still adjusting and getting back into our academic mentality. To whoever submitted this I hope that you can find something that will motivate you so that next quarter you will be able to confidently rate your experience as amazing instead of just “fine”.
The next response that stuck out to me was a 3 who explained how the quarter “Went great academically. All of my friends got into Brawl Stars so they won’t have conversations and I’ve got some stuff going on that’s very unfun.” First I would like to thank this individual for such a unique and specific response, this is unlike any other I have received from putting this survey out. Second I would have to agree to the extent that this game has been very popular recently so I apologize that your friends are so enthralled to the point where they will not engage in conversations with you. My advice is to either start playing the game with them or find different friends, good luck!
A very optimistic response from a student who rates the quarter a 5 says “It honestly wasn’t as hard to transition into high school as I thought it’d be. Sure, more is expected of you at Magnet, but that’s really the only big difference from middle school to me. (And that’s coming from someone from a small middle school with a graduating class of 11) I hope all of the freshman class is doing as well here as I am.” This is an amazing sign of adjustment to Magnet! As evidenced by their explanation, they seem to have started off their magnet career very aware of the expectations here and they started off their experience very aware of the expectations here and were able to come from a very small school to flourish here at AMHS. They also leave a kind note for the other freshman and I second that!
Ending out with a very respectable response we have “Overall, first quarter was pretty good. It wasn’t perfect which is why I gave it a 5 since I was still getting used to the new school environment. Getting to know new people and going to homecoming/other football games were definitely some of the highlights of first quarter.” This student said they rated their experience a 4 and stated how they enjoyed the outside-of-school activities. The football games have been super exciting and fun to go to with some friends. I think they are a great way to end the school week and lead to a relaxing weekend. This student (much like me getting used to the work) explains how they are still adapting to the new environment so they could not perfectly give it a 5. Perhaps the second quarter with new sporting games like basketball and getting into the groove of magnet will improve this student’s rating to a 5!
Although this only featured a small portion of the responses from the freshman class, only two students rated their experience a 1 and 2. After thoroughly reading all of the responses most of them were very positive, emphasizing their appreciation for the uplifting teachers that helped them adjust to the new school environment. Of course, there were many comments about the workload but the freshman explained that ultimately the fun out-of-class activities and amazing friends they were able to make made it a super enjoyable quarter. There was one response that mentioned biology which probably resonates with most students: “Biology cooked me really hard 😕 like every single B-day.” Even if you aren’t a freshman I’m sure we can all acknowledge that there is always that one specifically hard class that we dread every day….at least I know I do. In closing, I wish to advise freshman to take their first year slow and to not beat yourself up over a couple of bad grades because they are mistakes you learn from! If you can’t tell I am definitely still an avid learner of my various mistakes. I know that the second quarter will be an even better experience (except for midterms), especially after having the time to adjust to high school. Best of luck raptors!
