“Start strong because if you don’t start strong, you’re just going to end in a pickle,” said senior Gabrielle Buchanan.

Now that the first trimester is coming to a close, many freshmen are concerned about how they’ll do on the finals. As Buchanan advises, it’s important that the freshmen work hard throughout the whole trimester so that the exams don’t have a large negative impact on their final grades.

Final exams are just one of the stresses that come with the adjustment from middle school to high school. Navigating the school, meeting new teachers and students, and adjusting to a new workload were all problems freshmen faced at the beginning of the year. 

For this initial adjustment period, most freshmen took one to two weeks to fully adapt to Loy Norrix.

“It’s a big change from middle school, but I think I’m getting used to it. It’s just taking time,” freshman Miya Timmer said.

“[Loy Norrix] is more overwhelming than Maple Street, but it’s also more casual, so I don’t know how I feel about it,” freshman Anni Holm said. “It’s good and bad at the same time.”

Whether it took them one day or two months to adjust to the school, the freshmen are now fairly comfortable at Norrix. 

For seniors, who have been fully adjusted to high school for a few years, they still remember the stress of their first day. Just like the freshmen, they were concerned about finding their way around the school, making friends, and interacting with upperclassmen. 

“Freshman year was interesting because it was such a different environment with older kids,” senior Ariel Godinez said. “I was pretty nervous about who to make friends with, but I ended up meeting upperclassmen and other people that were pretty cool and genuine.“

Although freshmen were able to overcome the challenges described by Godinez, they’re still having to prepare for final exams — something they didn’t have much experience with in middle school.

“I remember preparing for my practice SAT and other somewhat big tests, but I don’t think the stress levels [were] as high as they are for high school finals,” Timmer said. 

This year’s seniors were in similar situations when they were freshmen taking their first-ever finals. Now that they have three years of experience with finals, however, they’re no longer as anxious about end-of-trimester testing.  

“When I was a freshman, to make myself feel better, I wouldn’t think about the days but think about what I was currently working on,” senior class president Jaydon Kelley said.  

Making sure that you’re caught up on classwork is also an important part of making sure your freshman year is successful. “You should… get all your work in before you take the final, so that you can get the highest grade possible,” said Senior Jaydon Ruiz. 

Even though finals and studying are an important part of the freshman experience, maintaining mental and emotional health are also key to being successful. 

“Don’t procrastinate, leave behind the idea of Friday and start living everyday. Always get your sleep and eat, stay hydrated, be happier and make time, live life doing what you said you should have instead of having regrets in the future,” said Kelley.

Having valuable friendships is another important part of freshman year, according to Godinez. “It’s crazy to me because the friends you have growing up don’t always stick with you as you get older. But those same upperclassmen I met my first day are the people, I still keep in touch with today,” Godinez said.

Although the transition into the 2022-2023 school year was jarring for some, now that the second trimester is almost here, both the freshmen and the seniors will have much more experience at Norrix to help them adjust.