We are only a couple of months into the 2021-2022 school year and I’m already stressed out and confused in most of my classes. As a freshman starting high school after quarantining for almost all of my middle school years, I feel like I was not prepared at all for the challenges I am facing in and out of school.

At the start of middle school, all I can remember is my teachers telling me that I would learn the skills that I need to be successful in high school and eventually in college. In middle school, you don’t only learn the educational skills that you need but you learn how to manage your time and stay organized. You learn how to wake up earlier and juggle your homework, your classes, and extracurriculars all while having time for a social life.

I am now in high school and I have no idea how to juggle my classes, homework, and extracurriculars and still make time to hang out with friends and do my chores. While doing online school I had a little amount of work to do and I could lay in my bed while attending all of my zoom classes. Now after a year of doing this, I’m back in school full time and I have no time management or organizational skills. My school work, as well as my room, is a mess. There are loose papers in my bag, my homework is always crumpled, and my binders are a mess. I’m up at all hours of the night doing the tons of homework my teachers give. My classes are harder, and even though I pay attention I don’t understand all of the material. All my teachers are going at a really fast pace because before they can start teaching us their material, they need to make sure that we know the material we were supposed to have learned in middle school. When I’m up to doing homework and reviewing notes, it takes me hours to just do one subject’s homework. Even though the homework is in English I feel like I’m staring at a foreign language and when I ask my friends for help they are just as lost as I am which makes us all feel a little better that we’re all stressed and confused. 

A big part of middle school is learning social and emotional skills that will be helpful not only in high school but later on in life. In middle school, you learn how to take responsibility for your actions and you learn to respect and how to understand your emotions. You learn how to have a healthy friendship, how to make new friends, and how to have a conversion with new people. Learning these skills is so important for high school and I am always wondering if a school would be easier if I did have these skills. I have social anxiety and I can’t keep a conversation going with anyone. I’ll start one but I never know what to say, so the conversation ends. I am always nervous that the teacher is going to say that we are going to do a group or partner activity because I never have anyone to be partners with. I remember at the beginning of middle school people coming into our classroom and teaching us about how to make friends. I’ve tried everything and sitting at a desk without my camera on for my entire 8th grade school year is not helping anything. Luckily I’ve managed to make a few friends, but not learning these skills has impacted the way I feel about going out of the house even to hang out with good friends and family. Missing my middle school years will impact the rest of my life.

While being back in school full time is a good thing for everyone it is harder than ever to maintain good grades and relationships after missing school for almost two years. Things do seem to be getting easier, but they will probably never be the same. It is not as hard as when I started, and I hope everyone can get the help they need for their schoolwork and their mental health while we all just try to survive this next school year.