Starting high school seems super stressful, but here are 8 tips that help you survive your first year.

1.) What you do freshman year does affect you later on when you apply for college, so it’s important to try hard now.

2.) You will hear a lot about subschools, if it is not made clear what they are this can get annoying after a while. A subschool is an office for each grade, located in that grade’s locker pod. You can go that subschool to deal with matters relating to attendance.    

3.) If you need help you can always talk to your counselor. You can email them (their addresses are on Blackboard) or ask about at them at your subschool.

4.) There will probably be some program that is somehow supposed to significantly change things that will be introduced this year. Most likely it will sound smart but mean nothing. Just put up with it, within 3 months they’ll forget about it.

5.) You can stop by the writing center if you need help with schoolwork involving writing. Student tutors meet after-school every Wednesday who can review your writing for you and help as needed.

6.) If you are tired, doing the thing where you try and get a little rest by putting your head down while you’re working rarely works well. Resting any will make you more tired, and can lead to being trapped in a terrifying half-dreaming-half-awake state, which can sometimes cause hallucinations. One time I saw a cherry pie on my desk when this happened.

7.) Some teachers will always give you your homework in class, some teachers will only put homework on blackboard, and some teachers will sometimes give you homework in class and other times only give homework on blackboard without telling you.

8.) While it may be hard to understand this when you’re in the moment, it’s important to remember that even though you may be experiencing a lot of anxiety and stress you’ll be out of this situation eventually, and most of the problems that seem to matter right now will not matter in a few years. No matter what your experience is like high school is temporary.