Dear freshmen,
Welcome to your first year of high school. I am here to give you some tips to help you get through your freshmen year. If you follow these tips that I am telling you, your freshman year should be just fine.
Staying organized
Staying organized will be extremely helpful. A way to keep organized is to have a planner. Writing down your assignments on a paper agenda can help you remember to do them or remember when you have an important date or test. An additional way to keep track of your assignments is to use a digital calendar on your phone or iPad to send you reminders to do your homework or when the assignments are due or an upcoming test.
Having something to write down your assignments can help you manage your time to make sure you get them done and turned in on time. When you have missing or late work it can pile up quite fast. Then it can cause you to get really behind in all classes. Especially if you are in an after-school sport or activity.
The way that I stay organized is that I have a planner that I keep in my backpack. Then toward the end of class if I have an assignment I have to get done, I get out my agenda and write it down.
That is how I stay organized and keep track of my assignments or missing work.
Keeping up on work
Keeping up on work can be easy at the beginning of the year but then as the year progresses and you get more and more assignments, it can then get difficult to get it all done.
Here are some tips that I found helpful. If you have time in class to work on an assignment, take that time to work on the assignment. If you are done with that class’s assignment, use your time to work on something for another class.
When I get home from school, I take about thirty minutes or less to myself to get a snack or just to lay down. Then I start on my homework that I have to get done. I always try to get my assignments done as soon as possible because I am a very busy person when my dance season starts up, so I always find it helpful to get my assignments done as soon as I can, and you should do that too.
Getting involved with the school
Being a part of something in high school can make your high school years more enjoyable. Westview has a lot of clubs, sports, and activities that you can get involved in. It is a wonderful way to make friends and find a community that shares your interests.
Some examples of a sport are Westview football, girls or boys basketball, volleyball, girls or boys soccer, and track with more to choose from. Some activities that Westview has are a cheer team, drill team, and dance team. We also have a boys and girls golf team, boys and girls tennis team too. Some clubs at school that you could join are Gardening Club, Feminism Club, Art Club, and Bible Club, and we even have an Esports team. Westview also offers a bowling team or unified track with the ACP kids.
Ask for help/stay out of trouble
Asking for help can be a hard thing to do. I struggled for a while with it.
Asking for help should not be embarrassing. Everyone needs help sometimes. If you do not want to ask for help in front of your whole class, you can go up to the teacher or call them over after they’re done teaching or if they’re not doing anything. Ask a classmate of a close friend of yours. Once you realize it is not a bad thing it will become super easy. When I realized I should not be ashamed to ask for help it became so much easier for me.
Do not hesitate to ask teachers. or peers for help if you are struggling with schoolwork. Most people are more than willing to help if you reach out. Like if you’re stuck on your math homework you can email your teacher and ask them to help you on it the next time you have your math class, or you can reach out to a friend that is in your math class and ask them for help on the assignment. You could ask a parent, or even another teacher you are close with but they might not know exactly how to solve the math problem.
Explore resources and familiarize yourself with the resources available at school, such as the library, you can find books of all kinds like history, fiction and nonfiction, and even informational books in the library. The librarians can always help you find something. There are study rooms in the library too and one of them has computers that you can work on.
The counselors can be a big help as well if you have a problem with your schedule, you can email them and tell them the issue. They can even help you if you are having a problem at home or with some friends. You can go to them and ask for help and advice on the situation, and they could give you other resources if you need them as well. The consoles can also help you throughout your academic journey here at Westview.
Take Care of Yourself
Make sure to eat well and get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. Taking care of your physical and mental health is crucial for academic success. When you are not getting enough sleep, you end up falling asleep in your classes, then you miss that class’s lesson. It is important that you get around eight hours of sleep each night.
It is always a good idea to make sure you eat a healthy breakfast before school or getting to school early enough to get the breakfast that the school offers. When you go hungry in your classes in the morning because you did not eat anything it can become hard to focus in class.
I do not normally eat in the mornings, but I pack something extra in my lunch that I can eat quickly while I am in class and wait for lunch.
I hope these tips that I have given you help you have a successful and enjoyable freshman year!
