Juniors Face Extreme Stress

At 6:15 a.m. the first alarm goes off. At 6:40 a.m. you roll out of bed. At 7:30 a.m. you are off to school, and you spend the next six hours studying, taking tests, and working hard. At 2:41 p.m. the bell rings, and for the next five hours you are up at your desk doing homework and studying. By 11:30 p.m. you finally get to bed, only to repeat this cycle every day for 180 days.

You just spent a day in the life of an average Scituate High School student. Juniors are living this routine over and over again, but they are also adding in hours of homework, AP testing, standardized testing, the college search, and extracurricular activities. From looking at the daily routine, when do they have time for these other tasks? With the extreme stress already put on these students, they also face extreme pressure from SAT scores, their GPA, National Honors Society, and the non-stop talk about college. Is there ever a break for these students?

Junior Brooke DuBois is the CEO and President of The Dog House, a collaborator with the Quell Foundation, a competitive soccer player and runner, but most importantly, she is a student working hard to pass 11th grade. DuBois has felt the extreme pressure of junior year as she strives to achieve and maintain her high grade point average.

When asked how stressed DuBois was on a scale from 1-10, DuBois was a 7. “The hardest part is not just balancing our schedules, but dealing with the insane amount of work we are given every day,” said DuBois. On average, DuBois spends anywhere from 4-7 hours a night on school work. “For the first 3 months of the school year, half of the week the minute the bell ring I had to go to soccer practice until 4:30 and would start my homework after that, but the other half of the week I had games, depends if they are home or away, but I wouldn’t get home from the games until 7 and start my homework then,” DuBois said. She faces an extremely stressful routine during the first three months of school, but it only continues the rest of the year when DuBois starts club soccer.

Courtney Cutting, a competitive soccer player, an outstanding sprinter in track, a starting hockey player on the varsity team, a busser and hostess at Rivershed, is also a straight-A junior at Scituate High School. When asked how stressed Cutting was on a scale from 1-10, Cutting was a 7. Cutting faces an extreme amount of work given by her teachers and manages to get it done in 2-3 hours. Cutting endures a tedious routine on a daily basis in the winter time. “I have to wake up at 4 in the morning, and go to hockey practice, then a full day of school. After school I am very tired so I normally have to take a nap so I don’t get sick, but if hockey is after school, whether its practice or a game I get home around 7 and don’t start my homework until 9 and get to bed around 11:30-12 and then have to wake up at 4 the next morning for practice,” said Cutting. With Cutting’s tough hockey schedule, She gets a limited amount of sleep with having to balance her hours or homework and studying.

Junior Annika Lisi, a competitive dancer, spends about 20 hours a week at the dance studio Duval Dance, but most importantly she is working hard to pass 11th grade. When asked how stressed Lisi was on a scale from 1-10, Lisi was a 6. On an average weeknight, Lisi is at the dance studio for four hours. “After school, I go home and do my homework until about 6, then I go dancing until 9:30-10, and then I come home and finish the rest of my homework and get to bed around 12:30-1:00am,” said Lisi. It is not common for a high school student to get an average of 4-5 hours of sleep, considering the intense amount of homework and the amount of stress they face.

Can you imagine living life as a junior? Life is extremely stressful and this year brings many changes. Junior year is a time for students to become independent and strategically plan their time. “Manage your time well a lot of things junior year are due at the end of the week so on Monday don’t say you have no homework because you do. Make sure you try if you have extra time to try and do long term assignments,” said DuBois. Junior year will be tough but time, but going to bed early is also key. Don’t stress staying up longer and make sure to get sleep in order to succeed. “Go to bed early. Get sleep. Enjoy your sleep,” said Cutting. In order to succeed in a junior year, these juniors suggest working as hard as you can as an underclassman. “Do really well freshman and sophomore year,” said Lisi.