Going from a small class of 10 as a Freshman to a huge school with over 2,400 students, as a sophomore, was definitely a significant change for me. The biggest school I ever went to before was Copper Mountain in the 7th grade. I remember being terrified on the first day of school and crying because I was lost. I thought the same thing would happen on the first day of high school but I decided to come into school with a positive mindset and it was actually great! 

The transition from a charter school to a high school was huge for me and brought a lot of fear and anxiety to the surface. And boy, did the anxiety suck! The first day ended up pretty great and I told myself I shouldn’t have been so worked up when everything was going to be okay. I think going to a bigger school has been better than a small school overall, at least for me. 

In a big school, there are a lot of opportunities and experiences you can’t get in a small school. These could include; golf, clubs, newspaper classes, softball, language classes, tennis, and so much more. Plus, there are a lot of people, which means more friends and diversity. Finding my classes was probably the hardest thing on the first day of school. I kept thinking I was going to get lost since it’s such a large school, which did indeed happen a couple of times. A -days and B -days were something I had to get used to since my previous school consisted of 7 classes every day, each of them 45 minutes long.

I went ahead and interviewed other sophomores to ask them what their feelings were about going into high school. Alcey Mecham, a sophomore at Herriman, says that she was excited about the thought of high school but was “definitely nervous” the first day of school.

I asked a friend of mine named Isabella Rizzuto how she felt on the first day of school and she said, “I wanted to die… I had about two panic attacks.” I’m sure that’s how almost every student felt the first day of school. Kailey Taylor, another student in the newspaper class, said she was nervous and scared for her first day of high school. Lily Saba says, “I was pretty excited! A bit worried about not being able to find my way around the school since Herriman is a maze, but other than that yeah, excited.” I also thought interviewing my mom would be cool since she was once in the same position so I went ahead and asked her how she felt on her first day of school. She said she felt scared and intimidated, feeling like she would fail and not be able to find her classes, also afraid she wouldn’t make it to class on time. Finally, I interviewed Autumn Jordan, a friend from my last school and now currently attending Mountain Ridge. I asked her how she felt about going to a bigger school. She described feeling “nervous because it was such a big change but excited because it was a lot of new opportunities.”

I think the first day of high school was an overall stressful, exciting, and adventurous day for everyone.