by Asher Hirt ’25
May 2024
As the end of the school year comes to a close, the atmosphere within USN transforms into an absolute hurricane of academic pressures. While some students eagerly anticipate the freedom of summer, others can not quite find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Some students feel trapped in a heavy workload of assignments, extracurricular activities, and exams. The pace of these endeavors affects everyone differently but it seems that it depends on what grade students are in:
The Smooth Sailing Freshman Finish:
After fully settling into high school, the work that accompanies them is quite manageable. Aaron Raney ‘27 says even with soccer practice and games after school and piano lessons twice a week, the amount of homework he has barely adds on to his workload.
“I probably do less than 20 minutes of homework a night, honestly,” he said.
USN’s teachers want to welcome new high school students in with low stress and acclimate them to high school, and one of the ways they achieve this is with the low amount of homework given out.
The Sophomore Step-Up:
Sophomores are feeling the pressure heavier than freshmen, but it is still very manageable. Dean Stevenson ‘26 says that he feels that there is the perfect amount of work and that he still feels challenged but in a positive way.
“I have about an hour of homework a night, but sometimes I can get almost all of it done at school during my free period,” he said.
When balancing his life outside of school, Stevenson talked about his time volunteering and dedication to the lacrosse team, which made it all the way to the state final four.
“I spend a couple hours every other week volunteering and after school I either have a game or practice that takes about two hours, ” he said.
A lot of students have sport commitments during the spring season since there is the most sports occurring. During winter and fall seasons there are far fewer people playing in a sport. Lacrosse, Softball, Baseball, Boys Soccer, Track, Frisbee, and Tennis are all happening in the spring. Over 200 students are involved in sports programs in the spring season.
This sports commitment along with the moderate academic commitments provides most sophomores with a manageable but challenging workload.
The Junior Juggernaut:
Juniors are absolutely in the trenches right now. With harder academic classes like AP courses, preparing for exams, working through the beginnings of college processes, and other extracurricular activities, juniors find themselves in a hole academically.
Madeline Chalos ‘25 described all of her experience with the pace at the end of the school year.
“As a part of the junior class treasurer on the student council I had to sort out Prom, raising money for it and decorating the space. A couple of weeks ago I went to YIG and missed two full days of classes,” she said.
The college process takes up alot of time for most juniors as well. Studying for either the SAT or ACT can take multiple hours every week to make sure they are properly prepared for it. Juniors lose a lot of free period time because of college counseling meetings. This time could otherwise be used to knock out the massive load of homework assigned. Chalos said on average she spends about three hours a night on homework.
“My free periods usually end up with either a community meeting or I have another club commitment or test to make up during X [period] which leaves me to do almost everything at home,” she said. “Also, I feel like teachers are scrambling to get in all of the material they have set for the year.”
Teachers who fall behind on schedule due to unexpected curveballs scramble classes with all the material that was planned for the year. The only solution to this is to rush and squeeze it all in right now to make sure it gets covered. This combination of factors lead to a rough end of the year for the class of 2025.
The Senior Slide:
The mythical senior slide is real. After getting into college, some seniors start to lose motivation in class and ease up on the academics. The way that the USN high school curriculum is set up, it is quite achievable to have almost all the necessary credits to graduate by the end of the first semester. This leaves some seniors with multiple free periods, usually two.
Seniors typically do not have to focus on studying for exams as long as their averages remain above 80%. It is optional to take the AP exams this year as well.
Jack Schwarcz ‘24 says that his main focus is hanging with his friends rather than maintaining good grades now that he’s in college.
“I have spent more time trying to win the senior assassin this semester than doing homework,” he said.
Teachers seem to know that many seniors are less dialed in on school work which lowers the amount of homework given to seniors and also leaves a lot of leniency on late work.
The homework is so light that one anonymous source from the class of 2024 claims that they have not done a single piece of homework the entire semester.
Final thoughts:
The varying paces at the end of the year shows that teachers might need to reschedule the timelines for their classes. Unexpected snow days or other scenarios can push the material that needs to be taught back into the end of the year. If multiple classes are behind and pushing out work faster than usual, students can feel even more rushed and stressed. The addition of exams and the end of the year feels like a drag for numerous students. Whatever situation students find themselves in it, the end of the 2023-2024 year has finally arrived, and students have pushed through to see it!
