Teenagers' Stories: What I Learned the Hard Way about Success in High School

EduGuide challenged high school English classes to think about the advice for teenagers they would give to younger students. We asked them to write about the teenagers' problems they've experienced and "what they learned the hard way." Crystal Morseau responded to the challenge. Thanks, Crystal, for being an EduGuide.

Ready—I Thought—for Middle School Transition to High School

Most people in middle school are worried about going in to high school. I wasn’t most people. I couldn’t wait until I got in to high school, after watching movies about high school, it seemed pretty exciting and, every one was always happy. Every one in the movies had lots of friends, I had some friends in middle school but I thought I would have more in high school just like the movies, and plus there were more students than in middle school.

Finally, high school started. I thought I was ready to achieve dreams I'd savored for high school. The movies I’d seen made it seem pretty easy, so I tried to play the first week or so like the movies. All of my friends were too busy developing high school study skills and our relationship grew apart, because I didn’t want to study. The only friend I had left was my best friend Charlie. So the idea of having a bunch of friends went down the drain. After I spent so many weeks on my social life rather than my book studies, my grades began to fall into failing. I hated high school; every one in the movies seemed so happy but I wasn’t. Then one day my friend Charlie had this great idea to skip class, so we skipped every other day. Finally we got caught and we had to spend a while in ISS (In-School Suspension). Since my parents were so mad, I didn’t skip anymore but I started goofing off in class all the time. I made some friends by goofing off but those were the friends I wished I had never made. You can say that those were the bad kids and, at the time, I thought they were the cool kids. 

High School Academics Were Tougher Than Expected

Second semester came around and my grades were as low as any grade you could possibly get on a report card. So, my parents decided to move me to another school to get away from the bad friends I had made. At this school I wanted to try and succeed so I made the decision to do just that. This way maybe my parents would be happy with me and I could be happy about school. My grades wouldn’t drop and I wouldn’t have to repeat the ninth grade! The rest of the school year was perfect; every thing worked out great. My parents were happy and I was happy. I thought doing my work was going to be hard but it was pretty easy to keep up with every thing, plus Charlie moved to another state so I didn’t have any more of her great ideas. I liked the new school so I continued attending it but I really did miss Charlie.

• Don’t always follow what’s in the movies. I learned that almost every thing in the movies is fake; it's fun to watch but don’t try it out in real life.
  
• Don’t just focus on your social life. It’s really exciting to make new friends but, continue on your book studies. It you’re really meant to be friends with people then you’ll be friends but, if you don’t become friends that’s okay, just keep out of trouble.
  
• What ever you do, don’t skip class. Skipping class may seem like fun and cool but trust me from experience, your parents won’t be happy and the only person that is going to pay is yourself.
  
• Continue to try: Continuing to try won’t get you behind.
  
• If all else fails, transfer schools. This way you have a new start at the beginning of high school.

Crystal Morseau is a junior at Volinia Outcomes School in  Marcellus, Michigan.

Was Crystal’s article helpful? Post a comment to let her know.