Movie culture preaches that high school is about falling in love with a next door neighbor, eating outside on the quad and answering your phone in the middle of a class because your BFF has gossip to spill about your arch enemy. Most likely, high school was never like that for any of us.
What seems more familiar is the awkward tension created by cliques, the school lunches that left our stomachs turning for days and the numerous cross-examinations for wanting to go anywhere, ever.
Some people look back on their high school days and can vividly recall at least a few qualms they had about high school. Others can’t bring themselves to discuss high school because by now it seems like such a trivial part of their lives compared to life at dear old State.
We went to the streets asked students about the things they didn’t like in high school.
Cattiness in Students (and Teachers!)
“I don’t miss the cliques,” says Valerie Adolphe, senior. She then transitions her concerns to her experience with theater. “The performing arts teachers played favorites. I almost got my role as the Fairy Godmother taken away from me. She tried saying I wasn’t ready.”
Pushy Guidance Counselors
“Guidance counselors would set you up to take classes for your college resume instead of what you were interested in. I made up a sob story to take a zoology class instead of physics,” says Alex Williams, senior.
Getting Up at the Crack of Dawn (and Staying Up. All Day.)
Adam Shrager, a, talks amongst his friends about the issue of not getting enough sleep. “Getting up at 6:30 a.m.” and “no naptime” were the worst parts about high school, according to him and his friends.
The Interrogations
The where-do-you-think-you’re-going attitude toward students is a popular subject among our interviewees.
Madeline Roche, junior, holds nothing back talking about the hall monitors at her high school. “We always had to have a hall pass and we would be interrogated if we didn’t. Hall monitors were ruthless people. They weren’t even kids; they were adults, and their job was to yell at you all day,” Roche says.
Nicole Iuculano, junior, chimes in with her contempt toward the routine of giving teachers a play-by-play.
“We would have to sign in and out at the exact time we were doing to the bathroom because we had bomb threats!” Iucalano says.
She also mentions her problem with the intolerance teachers have for late students. “If you had three lates, it was an absence. If you weren’t physically sitting in your seat by the bell, you were late. It was ridiculous,” she says.
G-Rated Dress Code
Every girl can relate to Erika Uzzolino, junior, when she tells her story of how absurd the dress code is in her high school.
“If you wore spaghetti straps, you’d have to wear a huge white T-shirt from the office. You had to wear it for any ‘violation’ against the dress code, and there were a lot,” she says.
Four years in high school is a lot of time to create some really great memories, but for most of us, there are a few things we will simply never miss. College is a beautiful change when it comes to wanting to wear what you want, eat what you want and when you want, and molding your schedule the way you want.
When you find yourself complaining that the dining commons isn’t making the panini you want, just remember that you could be back in your old element eating fake peanut butter from a plastic cup.
Photo by Shantelle Williams
