Junior Year (A Review)
Is Junior Year (US 11th grade) hard?
That 3rd year of high school - the one where people usually take lots of APs, take some leadership roles, and generally just get a chance to be at the top of the school pyramid and can actually "do stuff" and make changes to the communities they're in.
That 3rd year of high school - the one filled with stress with all the classes people are taking, that time when you engage in some mild political rivalries to secure a position - whether that be class president, or club president, or team captain. It's also this year where the big bulkhead of college starts looming over your head like how a dark cloud looms over a picnic.
Obviously, different people will have different perspectives on this pivotal third year. So take mine with a grain of salt.
For me, Junior Year was simple. Show up, do some work, grind a little bit at home, then play some video games. Although everyone said things along the lines of "you will have no free time," I had quite a lot, considering I continued playing games (chess, tetris) and even started a new one (Mindustry).
Yet simple isn't easy. I stayed up late (no all-nighters) to finish some work, had to do some things the class or break before class, and definitely failed at some big school assignments -- which doesn't mean much in life, but still not doing adequate isn't really good. Friends drifted away from previous years, and many days I felt more alone than usual.
Of course, I am that class nerd. I would prefer to consider myself the guy sitting in the back with a hood on knowing everything, but that's not up for me to decide. I don't talk to many, I took some hard classes (but definitely make the hardest schedule ever), and overall optimized my classes for enjoyment with a sprinkle of challenge on the side. And of course, everything turns out fine in the end.
People like asking for advice. It's nature to be cautious -- especially toward such a big thing like a few months of your adolescence -- and generally, in the face of gaining no more reward, we don't really like risk (unless we're engaging in risk-aversion behavior). Also I'll try to skip the basic advice like get good grades, don't get depressed, don't get fooled into thinking that the school has an elevator and buying an "elevator pass" from the seniors, etc.
- Get some help -- From your teachers, peers, etc. Basically don't be stupid and burn unnecessary bridges
- Optimize for being happy. This can mean taking some simpler classes, taking some "fun" classes (for me this was Jazz and basically woodworking).
- -- following from 2, optimize for not spending 3h after school recovering from school
- Do something outside of school, but also something inside of school. Everyone talks about extracurricular stuff, but given that you will have down time in school (finished work quickly, no lecture, finished test early), find something to do with that time. A simple way would be by bringing a book and reading that on the side.
- Try not to optimize for school. Optimizing for school is not bad, but outside of school, and especially once there is no school, there won't be much to do -- in my eyes, although school is my job, and it's good to treat it sometimes as such, in the end, what you'll do probably doesn't align with everything you're being taught, so I'd advocate for treating certain classes (or maybe school in general) as sort of a side project thing. Definitely pay attention to your side project, but that attention doesn't need to be overwhelming.