How To: Survive Junior Year

Kathie Guo '16, Public Relations

“I’m mostly nervous about essays, AP exams, AP Chemistry, and AP Physics,” Val Post ’17 remarks.

Junior year (also known as the dreaded year, the “year that colleges actually care about,” and the year of no social life) has graced a new class of students with its presence. In September, almost every junior worries about the stress of the upcoming year; here are some tips to make it a bit easier.

Continue participating in extracurricular activities (especially the volunteering you started in sophomore year) or join a new one. You may be dragged into wanting to spend all of your time keeping those grades up in your increasingly difficult classes. However, keep in mind that extracurricular activities are important as well (and in senior year, you may regret not joining more clubs). However, homework doesn’t just disappear. In order to have enough time for homework, do not schedule all of your activities on one day – try to spread them out over the week so you leave enough time for work and studying each day.

Crash Course is your best friend. The Crash Course YouTube channel posts in-depth videos about certain academic subjects; it has many relevant playlists for junior year, including U.S. Government and Politics, Economics, U.S. History, Psychology, Chemistry, Biology, and Literature. These series offer general overviews of each topic and are great to watch after learning a new unit or studying before a test.

Utilize your free periods. With more homework and less time to do it, study hall, the fifteen minutes before school starts, and lunch (after eating, of course) offer several chances to chip away at the day’s workload. You can, of course, use these periods for breaks and relaxation, but if you happen to have a ton of homework that day, you can get at least a small portion of your homework done or study for an assessment and get an extra half an hour of sleep or relaxation time in the evening.

Calculus teacher Ms. Kilpatrick also advises this for when you’re not at school:  “Budget your time!  If you’re waiting for 15 minutes before an appointment or meeting, try to do your homework.  Bring your backpack everywhere – it will be really helpful.”

Save your notes. There’s a good chance that you will take a cumulative test at the end of the year (whether it be a final or an AP test). Rather than reading the entire textbook over, you can study the (hopefully) comprehensive notes you took.

Keep track of your tasks and goals. Write down everything you need to do. Keep a calendar, whether it’s on your phone or at your desk (or both), and look over your schedule at the beginning of each week to ensure that you’re always aware of your upcoming assessments and activities.

“You should write your goals in really big letters and put them on the walls where you work to remind yourself of what you’re struggling for,” Varsha Cyriac ’16 encourages. This not only keeps your spirits up, but it helps keep your mind focused and on task.

Mental health is always essential. Kate Rose ’16 recalls, “Everyone knows you have to stay organized and study and the usual things, but it’s important to take care of yourself. The worst part of junior year for me was just feeling all the pressure and then feeling like I wasn’t performing to that standard. I was an emotional wreck just because I wasn’t confident with myself, but of course, looking back now, I did fine. My advice would be just to take a step back from everything once and a while and remember that you’re okay.”

It’s easy to get lost in the stress of junior year, so don’t forget to spend some well-deserved time to relax.

These tips can help you get through the year, but only if you believe you can succeed. As Evelyn Bigini ’16 reassures, “Although it is certainly filled with a lot of work, junior year is not as scary as many believe it to be. As long as you stay organized, study, and do your assignments thoroughly and on time, you should be fine. Remember that life is a marathon, not a sprint, and that your health, both physically and mentally, is most important.”