Freshman Year Phobias

As the seasons begin to change, one might start to notice the new freshmen scouring the school campus for seeds. History Day boards will eventually fill the hallways a few months later, and the new year will bring dramatic renditions of scenes from “Julius Caesar” performed by students for English class. In the last quarter of the school year, floods of students will be pulled to the biology room every day to dissect various animals in the hopes of passing numerous quizzes before the end of the year. The notorious “Hell Day” announcement may bring feelings of sympathy from older students who have already tread the long path of freshman year. If you have been at Seabury for a few years, you have probably heard the rumors about high school–specifically freshman year. So is this all just to scare younger students? Is ninth grade actually as hard as everyone says? Is there really truth behind these tales? 

“I feel like it’s been a little harder than the beginning of last year.” Says freshman Oona Nelson, “There’s definitely a difference between the workload and the teaching styles.” Although the school year is only a few weeks in some freshmen are beginning to feel the first pushes of their high school career. “I feel like it hasn’t really hit yet. I mean we’ve had a couple of long readings in English but other than that it hasn’t been too bad . . . yet.”

A lot of anticipation comes with starting a new school year, new classes with new teachers and new peers, but even more so when it seems something so ominous is looming ahead. “I think that some of that is . . . [the] nerves of the front-end.” Says faculty member Michael Pulsinelli, “I generally think if you talk to a tenth, eleventh or twelfth grader they’ll usually say something along the lines of, ‘Just make sure you read well and just make sure you start things early and you’ll be fine,’ but, having said that, I do think that there’s an expectation leap going from eighth to ninth grade in general.”

Pulsinelli’s English class often surfaces in discussions of freshman year, as many of the most notorious projects are completed in his class. “Mr. Pulsinelli’s English class–that was definitely the hardest [class].” Says junior Brayden Shumaker, “The workload was just a lot compared to everything I was used to. It was just a lot.” Shumaker, who has attended Seabury since seventh grade, says he had heard a little from older students about the first year of high school. “I’d just heard that freshman year was a lot harder than eighth grade was, but that’s about it.”

“[I’d heard] Just that freshman year was horrible,” says sophomore Elizabeth Mangan, “That’s all I heard and it was kind of terrifying.” Even in early middle school, some students hear horror stories from older students.

Nelson, on the other hand, has heard plenty from friends and siblings. “I’ve heard stories from Hilary, Lyle, Henry and other people around the school that I’m friends with and they’re like, ‘Yeah the seed project with all the other projects and ‘Dante’s Inferno’’ and all that stuff,” says Nelson, “just all the classes have a [big] workload and it all meshed together is a lot to handle.”

So besides all of the stories and the looming workload, where do all of these nerves come from? From his experience with freshmen, Pulsinelli says, “I think just the fact that you’re not in middle school . . . you’re in high school, and people start talking to you about college and people start talking to you about your transcript and things staying down permanently, things like that. I think there’s a certain seriousness to that, but I also think it’s good for people becoming young adults to start thinking that way.”

“Don’t procrastinate things, it makes it a lot worse.” Says Mangan, repeating a common bit of advice given to incoming freshmen. Most would agree that with the sudden increase in workload–but also increase in the freedom that comes with open hours and greater scheduling flexibility–comes the responsibility of handling all those things together. 

“Simply starting assignments when they get assigned and not waiting until the last minute,” Pulsinelli says, is the best way to go about things. He also encourages student-teacher interaction to help things go smoothly whenever problems arise.

For future and current freshmen, don’t worry! You all will make it through just fine. “Stay on top of things,” says Shumaker, “It really isn’t that bad.”