Crossing the bridge to the high school is a time of change and difficulty, yet it also opens up a space for growth and opportunity.

Managing homework, assessments, and extracurriculars, some freshmen are drowning in work. The domino effect carries on, affecting their mental health, social life, and overall well-being.

With Strath Haven’s emphasis on a student’s personal life and well-being, are the school’s newcomers able to maintain balance in their lives?

“I feel like even though teachers know about the football schedules and the field hockey schedules, they still give us tests and assignments that are due on that day, or, when we had a Thursday football game, the Friday after. It was all kind of hard… we were up until 10 because we’re in band. They encourage us to do extracurriculars and then give us zero time to do them.”

“Honestly, it’s a lot. It’s a whole lot of pressure, and I feel like it’s too much pressure coming down on me all at once… Extracurriculars are really fun, but I feel like I’m a lot more limited to them because of the workload, and it’s too much at once.”

“I mean, I do a lot of things outside of school like soccer and karate, and it definitely does interfere sometimes because I have ten more things to worry about. But, I think sometimes I’m able to manage it, just sometimes, it can be really overwhelming.”

“I have orchestra fifth block and then I do homework for two hours. Then, after that I usually have something else, like piano lessons or violin lessons. So, it’s a lot to manage… It’s kind of a struggle to find time to drink water and sleep.”

“Things definitely interfere. They’re all big time commitments and sometimes I just don’t have the time… you have to work out the conflicts and make sure you’re on top of it.”

“Sometimes the teachers have a bunch of work all on the same day, or tests on all the same days, and so on those days I can’t really go to clubs because I have to go home to study… Sometimes I’ll just tell my friends that no, I am not going to hang out, because I either have a worksheet to do for history or math page I haven’t finished yet.”

“I’d say it’s more enriching and harder. It’s at least 2-3 hours of homework every night.”

“Right now I think it’s fine, but the classes I have in my first semester aren’t the highest workload. I see all my friends complaining about science a lot, especially, and I don’t have that. I only have math homework.”