School can often be difficult to navigate, especially if you’re a freshman or a sophomore. It’s a new environment with different expectations and more responsibilities. As the end of the school year approaches, let’s hear some advice from Hayfield seniors that you can apply to the next school year.

How to manage time effectively:

Students are often juggling multiple things. Many people play sports, are involved in activities like theater, band, or debate, and along with this they also have to try and stay on top of their school work. While it may seem like a lot at first, here are some suggestions that can help you enjoy and organize your time:

“Holding yourself accountable with a planner and maybe even a study buddy always worked really well for me, but above all just make sure your priorities are straight – you can’t play hard unless you work hard so just make sure to keep everything balanced,” Naomi Million said. 

“I prioritize what’s important first, I’m an athlete as well as a student but I focus on my academics before my athletics so that drives me to get my work done,” Caleb Henson said. 

“I try to do my schoolwork the second it’s assigned so that way whenever I have free time, and I also use SOAR it helps with time management,” Gianni Alvarez said. 

“I usually just try and get my schoolwork done first so I don’t have to worry about it, and then I played soccer all four years of high school so I had to manage that and schoolwork too, but if I got my work done first it was pretty easy,” Mia Rier said. 

Preparing for standardized testing:

Around 1.9 million students take the SAT each year, and approximately 1.4 million students take the ACT each year. Standardized tests can often be a source of stress, however with the right methods you can study and avoid test-taking anxiety.

“Standardized testing is a little bit harder to tackle because some people are not very good test takers, the only real advice I can give is to try your best and leave the stress in that room, don’t think about it again until scores come out,” Naomi Millon said. 

“Studying is obviously one of the best things to utilize, I enjoy doing the SAT preps that just make the SAT test a lot easier,” Caleb Henson said. 

“Just studying and SAT prep, just keep revising and going over it over and over,” Gianni Alvarez said. 

“I utilized the summer a lot when school wasn’t going on, and I also had a tutor that helped me,” Mia Rier said. 

Choosing classes:

One of the great things about high school is the freedom you have when choosing classes. You have tons of electives, AP classes, Dual Enrollment, and Academies to choose from. With lots of options, you want to choose classes that you’re interested in and some that challenge you. Let’s look at some ways to decide what classes to pick, and how to deal with some of the more challenging that you might take.

“A larger load of work/rigor doesn’t feel as bad if its about something you enjoy so make your interests a priority, also get comfortable with staying after school, this gives you an opportunity to get one-on-one help with the teacher and ask questions that you couldn’t or maybe didn’t feel comfortable enough to during class,” Naomi Million said. 

“Definitely focus on what you plan to do in the future and also have different backup plans, don’t just pick classes you’ll think you’ll never use in the future, pick something that you think you can utilize in your everyday life,” Caleb Henson said. 

“Do something that you’re going to enjoy and that will help your GPA and your overall grades and mental health,” Gianni Alvarez said. 

“Take a lot of classes that you’re interested in, if you don’t know what you wanna do just honestly take a variety of things,” Mia Rier said. 

 “I took a lot of hard classes in Junior and Senior year because of the schools I wanted to apply to, push yourself but don’t do too much,” Mia Rier said. 

All in all, the three takeaways from the advice these seniors have given are keep your priorities straight, use SAT prep, and take classes that you enjoy. I hope that I and all the other underclassmen are all able to apply to utilize this advice throughout our high school experience.