@dsi411 Nah, homework is as unproductive as the American educational system. I’d rather learn a new language or a new paino piece than sleep. Sure, I feel tired and miserable if I’m running on 5 hours or less, but I feel fulfilled. I still try to fit in 7 though, as I’d like to avoid adverse health effects.
@MissSuzyQ We have an hour long lunch+study period. Seniors are allowed off campus.
@stacie129 It’s great, just don’t go looking at some of the other schedules other CCers have. They’re not the norm, I assure you.
@MissSuzyQ We have a 40min lunch (it’s just as long as every other period bc you could have lunch during one of the five periods it’s offered depending on your schedule) and technically you’re allowed to go off campus but no one really leaves since only a few seniors are allowed to drive to school + there’s nothing within walking distance.
We have either a 20 minute lunch, 40 minute lunch, or no lunch depending on your schedule. No one is allowed out of the lunch room during lunch unfortunately. I’m on the east, and I get about 3-5 hours of homework a night. Combined with cross country and the fact that I have work on some school nights, I won’t be getting much sleep this year.
My lunch is 35-40 minutes long, I can’t really remember. But it’s when both middle school and high school go to lunch, so the lines are always really long.
Wow, the majority of you guys have really long lunches. My lunch is 20 minutes and the time that I have lunch changes based on what day of the schedule it is.
Does anyone else get super stressed out about essays? I always have a lot of science, history, and math homework but I never get too worried about them because I know they are all doable and manageable. But whenever I have an essay or writing assignment coming up I can’t stop thinking about it because it’s so open-ended and could take so long. Writing in general is just so exasperating for me.
@imbep49 I feel exactly the same way. I just can never start writing because the length seems daunting and I’m trying to get the organization and wording perfect in my head. For me, I just need to force myself to start writing and worry about editing later.
@imbep49 Taking AP Lang in my sophomore year was one of the most stressful experiences I’ve ever had in my life. I wrote, at minimum, 3-4 take-home essays a week. My teacher was very serious about the essay segment of the exam. It wasn’t so much the writing that bothered me, but the volume of the writing. There was just always so much. It was mentally and physically exhausting. By my second semester, I was ready to check out. Every essay that I wrote was like a freaking horcrux. It was life-sapping.
That being said, even if you’re going into STEM, writing is important. You’re going to be writing your whole life, and repetition is the best practice. The only way I got through AP Lang was by asking my teacher if I could see the rubric that she used to grade the essays. I started to write for the rubric, not myself. So, even if I thought the essay was subpar by my standards (which it often was) I knew that I was going to get a decent enough grade by just meeting the rubric’s standards. I didn’t concern myself with writing something that was great, just something that was good enough. It made it all much less of a chore.
@Frigidcold Yeah, I’m seeing the similarities. From what I’ve seen, I think I like the ACT more than the new SAT (!!!). I just need to polish up my math, and I think that I’ll get the ACT score I deserve. Looking back at the questions I got wrong, a lot of them are just me being an idiot.
I’m going to start being more active on this thread since junior yr is basically the at year to get ready for college admissions. When do you guys start your college visits?? At my school, 2nd semester of junior yr, u get excused absences for college visits. I don’t think I’m planning on visiting my reaches bc I don’t want to get attached. I’m so worried about this yr!! I’m a month in and super duper stressed. I’m taking:
French 3
AP environmental
AP Calc/IB Math HL1
AP Bio/IB Bio HL1
AP Euro/IB History HL1
AP Lit/IB English HL1
AP microeconomics/AP gov
I’ve only gone on one college visit (Northwestern – my mom and I were in Chicago) to this point, but I have a long weekend this October during which my dad and I are going to check out some West Coast schools.
My list is a little wishy-washy right now-- a safety, a few matches that I’m not in love with, and then reaches galore. It’s tough on the matches from because I don’t tend to like small schools unless there are a lot of reasons to like them (e.g. Harvey Mudd and Caltech) so the tiny LACs that are the most obvious matches, like Carleton or Reed, feel a little off.
Last week, I started Linear Algebra at a local college. I was a little nervous going in, but as soon as I sat down, I realized that it was much less intimidating than my physics class last year, which made me laugh. Hurrah for uncomfortable educational experiences!
My school started in mid-August, so I’ve been in the homework mindset for a while now. My classes are interesting, especially Latin IV, since we’re now reading works of Latin literature in full. All of my courses but chemistry are discussion-based and tiny: there’s nowhere to hide but a lot to learn.
My parents dropped my sister off at NYU yesterday. It’s so weird to think that I won’t see her until Thanksiving. We’re fairly close, and I’m going to miss her a lot. I’m thinking of trying to send her biweekly snail-mail letters with a little note and a silly thing (like a pumpkin sticker or a Minion temporary tattoo) inside.
This year will be a year for change and attempts to stay in the moment, I think.
I thought I took challenging classes this year, but so far the workload is pretty darn low. We can only hope it stays that way. On the other hand, classwork really picked up its pace. In AP Lang, we took a practice AP test on the second day of school (lol). My classes:
AP Lang and Comp
AP Physics C
AP Physics 1&2 (this was mandatory, bleh)
Organic Chemistry
Linear Algebra/Multivariable Calc
APUSH
University Research Internship
AP Studio Art: Drawing
I really really hope that my humanities classes stay moderate. I’m not too worried about the math and science classes as I’ve either already learned the basics of each class in the summer or I just feel very comfortable. But then again, got to still keep up with EC’s and leadership.
I’ve actually only visited reach schools so far. I was in California and New York so we just visited some of the top schools (Princeton, Yale, etc) but this year I will probably start visiting some more probable schools like case western, georgetown, nyu, etc. I’m also pretty interested in a liberal arts school.
I haven’t been on any formal college visits yet (and I don’t think I ever will, my parents don’t seem to have the time or the money) but I have been to a few colleges. UCSD for a summer program, UCI in middle school for a math competition, and UCLA in middle school during a field trip. But I didn’t get to see very much of UCI or UCLA.