(Vote): Yes, I loved it (Vote): Yes, I liked it (Vote): Neutral/no opinion (Vote): No, I disliked it (Vote): No, I hated it
I'm kind of curious as to what other people's high school experiences were like. I didn't have much of a traditional high school experience -- something that I deeply regret. It's really not been fun whatsoever, and I missed out on a lot of stuff that my friends get. Because I chose to go to an all male Catholic high school, I basically deprived myself of any opportunities to meet girls in high school and missed out on opportunities to go to parties and have fun. I also left behind all of my old friends. I've made a lot of new friends over the last three and a half years, but it's been tough.
I think a lot of people struggle in high school, not just in an academic sense. But I was wondering how other people felt about it. I could go on and on about my negative experiences, but it doesn't really matter. The few good experiences I've had were incredibly fun, and I look forward to making the most out of the last few months with my friends. I wish that I could've stayed better friends with the people from my old school, but things just didn't work out. I figure I would've left them eventually; whether it was when we all went off to college or if we just all had a falling out during high school.
Anyway, feel free to share your experiences in high school. I'm also kind of curious to hear what it's like in other countries. A friend of mine from the UK mentions high school every once in a while, but it seems pretty different from that of the US.
I didn't really care. I got a high school education and learned how to communicate (although that wasn't because of school, just me being around people my age some of the time), so it was good enough for me.
The way they taught is pretty close to college, I guess that's a good thing?
High school sucked. Waking up early sucked. Doing all this shit that did not prepare me for college and instead just weighed me down sucked. The environment in general sucked. I liked a lot of my teachers personally, and I made a lot of great friends, but it was still shitty overall.
College was great though. One of the best times of my life.
First two years of high school were awful. It was in a relatively small city that my family had just moved to, so almost everyone but me already had friends. I didn't have much interest in learning stuff either, just wanted to get home and play CS. I may have problems now, but I was so much more depressed and sleep deprived then.
Then it got better, partly because I decided I wanted to go to a good college, mostly because I made awesome friends who also love gaming and had good times. Never partied or met girls, but I think people seriously overrate that, seeing as it's lame in college it must be cringeworthy in high school.
On November 16 2014 11:23 The_Templar wrote: The way they taught is pretty close to college, I guess that's a good thing?
That's really good. College was really overwhelming for me because I never had to do research, take notes, study really hard for tests, or anything like that in high school.
Loved it. We were the most ghetto school you could have in suburbia. Worldstar-worthy fights every day, but it wasn't an issue for the students, it was more like gladiators. You don't give people a reason to want to fight you, nobody will fight you. Then you just watch the people who do.
Then again we also were light on punishment; a kid who threw a security guard down on the floor (who was restraining him from fighting another kid) sent him to the hospital for three months and got a four-day suspension so it wouldn't weigh down our town's records.
Also loved the diversity, coming from Moscow where the average color of the people isn't much different from the color of the snow to an incredibly diverse mix. Probably even more diverse than my college right now. Probably didn't solve the problems of racism, just trivialized them and made them a lot funnier. I'd imagine the word 'nigga' was used as casually (by all colors) as 'cunt' is in the UK. Getting out of that mode going into college was a bit... interesting, to say the least.
I mean it's nothing compared to college, but it was a great time while it lasted, and even all the bad stuff was still very formative.
Also my college is about two miles away from my high school. In fact our graduation is held on the college campus. So every day I just see fellow classmates and we just pretend it's eight years of high school
I had an awesome time in highschool. Friends with cars drove me places, cuz I was poor. I never really partied or anything, mostly played mario kart or laser tag or minigolf or w/e, which I much prefer anyway. I went on dates with my first girlfriend which were little more than excuses to make out. My best friend in high school was a girl, and that kinda let me get all the angsty nonsense out. I couldn't really talk about that stuff with my guy friends, or at least i didnt feel comfortable doing so. As for my guy friends, we'd mostly chat over MSN, discuss music or movies or video games. We were all kinda the creative types so we'd share and critique each other's photography, short stories, poetry, music, etc. And then sometimes they'd link you to lemonparty or tubgirl and you'd hate them for a week.
The most memorable parts of high school were actually grabbing dinner a couple times with my English teacher. The dude was garrulous as fuck. He'd praise a platter of greasy nachos until they'd turn into sparkling edible diamonds. One time we invited him to go bowling with us, and the bowling alley had a bar. We ended up having to drive him home. Which was a great hilarious happenstance for little straightlaced me.
Ended up losing contact with almost all my high school friends. It happens.
Highschool itself was boring. Schoolwork was decently challenging (tons of Advanced classes) and that occupied my time, but the stuff I did with friends is really the only memorable part. So the question 'did you enjoy highschool' is a bit strange. I think people's opinions really just depend on their friends and what they did outside class.
Oh my god some of the best years of my life. I went to a school with a lot of kids that only took AP classes, so we all bonded over the mass studying and whatnot. Plus our school was kind of small, only like 2000 students, so it was very tightknit ad everyone knew each other, and yeah. Also, marching band was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and swim was really fun too.
On November 16 2014 12:21 XDJuicebox wrote: Oh my god some of the best years of my life. I went to a school with a lot of kids that only took AP classes, so we all bonded over the mass studying and whatnot. Plus our school was kind of small, only like 2000 students, so it was very tightknit ad everyone knew each other, and yeah. Also, marching band was the greatest thing that ever happened to me, and swim was really fun too.
Is 2000 considered small? The biggest school in my city had 1500 or so, and my my school had 600-800 people.
On November 16 2014 12:10 Tufas wrote: I guess you only ment US ?
No, I'd love to hear about experiences people from other countries had in high school. Education is pretty much unique to each country, so I'd like to hear about what school is like in different places.
Edit: It's pretty cool to see the range of answers. It seems like a lot of it just came down to who you were friends with. Also, a school with 2000 kids seems pretty large to me, unless you live in a major city or an area with very few schools. Where I live the average size of the school is probably 700-1200 students. I go to a larger private school (1700 students), but I came from a school with only around 500 students.
On November 16 2014 13:15 itsjustatank wrote: high school went by fast, at about 300 wpm
what high school did you go to
If you're asking me, all you need to know is that one of our most (in)famous alumni is Bill O'Reilly. I'm even more embarrassed about this fact than you could imagine.
I didn't know any better so while looking back I would say there are some things I should have done, some things I should not have done, etc, I enjoyed it well enough at the time
On November 16 2014 13:15 itsjustatank wrote: high school went by fast, at about 300 wpm
what high school did you go to
If you're asking me, all you need to know is that one of our most (in)famous alumni is Bill O'Reilly. I'm even more embarrassed about this fact than you could imagine.
that you are concerned about that means you have a lot of growing up to do still
Yeah, the teachers, the friends, the events and all the shenanigans I did, and the first kiss. I loved it in retrospect. Though I have to say that they made me study a lot of things that are irrelevant to me now, wish they had anatomy classes instead of art or geography.
I stopped bringing books to school in grade 10 and never did any homework yet managed to pass every class by acing tests. I really hated the entire experience of having teachers give me the runaround every time I asked about homework so I skipped a lot of classes. I never planned to go to college nor do I now so passing every course at ~50% was my goal for my entire highschool career. I always dated girls from other schools and my friends were either in the alternate program('troubled kids') or older/younger than I so I hardly had any classes with friends. I learned how to game the school's rules pretty well though so that was fun, I only got suspended once.
I voted that I hated highschool because all of the fun things that happened during that time of my life happened while skipping school or during the summer.
I have some really great memories that I'll never forget, and I experienced everything in terms of the typical high school experience, so I don't feel like I missed out or had a bad experience. I didn't really care for the school itself as I wish I had learned more about certain useful things and not had to spend time learning stuff that was "useless".
I've also grown apart from the majority of my high school friends. When I do see them I don't even enjoy the company for some reason. I don't know how to explain it, it just feels like I've matured a lot more than some of them. At the time it was enjoyable though.
Shit, the amount of responsibility you have during the High School years of your life might as well be zero compared to everything that comes immediately after it.
All I did was goof around at school and play video games.
Sure, couldn't travel, drink, or do lots of other fun stuff that I can do now, but... the COMPLETE lack of responsibility and expectations... YOU WILL NEVER GET THAT AGAIN.
On November 17 2014 17:45 Fighter wrote: Shit, the amount of responsibility you have during the High School years of your life might as well be zero compared to everything that comes immediately after it.
All I did was goof around at school and play video games.
Sure, couldn't travel, drink, or do lots of other fun stuff that I can do now, but... the COMPLETE lack of responsibility and expectations... YOU WILL NEVER GET THAT AGAIN.
It's very different for most of my friends and me. We don't have much time to play video games, especially since a lot of our week is taken up by homework and extra-curricular activities. Some days I leave for school at 7 in the morning, and get back at 6:45 at night. Add on top of that the possibility of having 2-3 hours of homework, and I have very full days. Obviously if your goal is just to get by as opposed to excelling, you can play tons of video games and still pass. However, most high-achieving students in today's high schools would argue that there is way more stress than most adults could ever imagine.
There was actually an article just written in the Washington Post about a teacher who spent two days as high school students (one day as a 10th grader, one day as a 12th grader) and found that it was pretty exhausting and that it's no surprise that high-achieving students are stressed all the time.
I'm not saying that I have financial responsibilities, but for us Americans college is one of the biggest financial decisions we will make in our lives. Imagine being 17 again and having to make a decision about something that costs more than most people's houses. Although it's only four years, it's really expensive and even for upper middle class families it's a burden. I'm nowhere near close to affording it (my parents barely make enough combined to pay for university if they spent literally every single cent they earned on my education), and this also adds a lot of stress to my application process. Not only is it about getting into all the schools that I'd like to go to -- which entails high test scores, good grades, impressive extra-curricular activities, etc. -- but now I also have to worry about how much financial aid I will get to a college, both in merit-aid and need-based aid.
I do have a lot of friends who just basically breeze through high school without doing any work, but I'd say that if you want to be a really great student you can't do that anymore.
Quit school after tenth grade to move in with my girlfriend and make money. Went back to get my 'diploma' (haha) five years later, but that was a school for adults.
Regardless of that, I hardly think Germany's equivalent of 'high school' is close to the American one.
Off topic:
I think I'm one of the last people who really had an easy time during high school. We did have standardised testing, but that helped us because we had amazing teachers compared to regular schools.
But school kids now have it much rougher, having to complete the same curriculum in two years instead of three, having much more difficult exams, needing better grades to get into good unis etc. They have much less free time, have to be much more aware of their extracurriculars etc.
I went to a highschool (11th-13th class) that offered 2 certificates. I didnt gain the important one (entrance to university) certification but obtained the 2nd certification. I didnt repeat 13th class so I went to another class (people with only 2nd certificates^^) that has only one year. You can gain th 2nd certification too if went to work for 3 years after medium school, so I was the only one without job-experience in that one-year-class^^
I hated my 11th-13th class. The other one-year-class was by far the best class. My deputy headmaster told me that I am the first pupilar that went to one-year-class and not repeated the 13th class.
I am a student now (5th semester, mechanical engineering). From my medium school class, I am the only one that can obtain Bachelor degree , most of them failed at high school.
A time when I didn't give a shit about anything and all I did was skip class and smoke pot. So tbh I didn't have to many experiences there. Eventually got my shit together and yea. Just another state run bureaucratic shit hole.
It was pretty interesting for me. I was home schooled before that so I was able to actually have friends for a couple years which was awesome. But after my junior year all of my friends either left or graduated so my senior year sucked.
High school was awesome for me, easily one of the best times of my life. I studied at a private high school that was 5 minutes walk from my home. Our schedule was a straightforward mon to friday with 5-6 hours per day, so I never felt overloaded. The teachers were awesome in so many ways, they would regularly joke with us and talk with us but they knew how to teach and because of them I sort of learned to love math and physics. We had a broad curriculum including some history, biology and geography but the homework load was most heavy only for the primary subjects like physics, math and IT.
Now because I had a lot of time on my hands I played a lot of video games, at the time I was into strategy heavily playing tons of Age of Empires 2, but I switched later on to some hardcore CS. Socially it was weird, I was pretty shy and introverted at this point I didn't make many friends initially but the ones I did have were awesome and we kept in touch for years. We had like two camps in my class, the assholes that made fun of everyone and then everyone else, so I kind of got picked on, until I realized if I could trade math and physics homework for immunity
What I loved is that, we all had this sort of friendly competition were the smarter kids in class tried to one up each other in studying and getting good grades. It was a good environment for me because I was always very competitive in nature and I had something to prove. I came in with pretty low grades in primary school and I hated people's initial judgment of my performance.
The later years when I made more friends were the best, parties, road trips, barbecues, LAN parties and loads of fun.
I think I caught the last good years of education, I keep seeing news that our countries education sucks right now and I also hear horror stories regarding our system from close friends with kids. Hehe, good times. Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
On November 17 2014 21:23 farvacola wrote: I did too many drugs, participated in too many extracurriculars, and ate too much food.
Surprised to hear that from you Farv. I don't know you that well, mostly just superficial stuff, but I never thought high school went like that for you. I'd be pretty interested to hear how you went from that to being a personal trainer/law school student though
It was fine. Nothing bad, just nothing particularly memorable aside from a few things. College was way more fun. The only thing I miss is organized, competitive sports
I went to like 5 High schools and moved around a lot. As far as school, always hated it after like 6th grade (also went to a lot of different schools before then though too, so that's not why). Just didn't like all the forced bullshit, retarded rules and staff, asshole teachers, learning the same crap each year etc. I was always the kid who didn't even look at my homework but would get As and Bs on tests. Felt like a waste of time more often than not. I was a habitual truant at points, and late all the time as well. I never wanted to go, for no particular reason other than I would rather sleep in and not have to get up so fucking early and walk/skate/wait for bus to school with no breakfast and be tired until lunch.
However the times I forced myself (or was forced) to go anyways, I always enjoyed it once I was there because of hanging out with friends and doing something (even just fucking around in class) rather than just being alone at home by myself until everyone else got out of school. (even though I had single player gaming and terribad daytime TV). Although, I didn't give a shit about mainstream highschool stuff. I just hung out with my (mostly skater) friends and cracked jokes, did pranks, and made fun of people. I never participated in anything extra curricular at all and I don't regret it. All those stupid dances, field trips, sporting events, etc was just not something I cared about. Even to this day, dancing is completely unappealing to me and I don't care much about watching people playing games, whether accepted by the mainstream or not.
I don't think I used highschool to expand upon my social life at all. Already had a huge group of friends from middle school and my hood that I associated with, including girls. So essentially it was just boring and lame, but I had to do it because everyone else was, and if I didn't it was even more boring and lame being alone.
I graduated early by taking a test to skip senior year and started working.
I honestly wish I had a better education system and teachers though. Maybe my life wouldn't be such a fail
Depends when you ask me. In freshmen, sophomore and junior years I would have told you I absolutely hated it. Honestly it was because I was fat, bitter, a social shut in who played WoW all day loser. Around halfway through my junior year I quit WoW, started getting out more (parties, friends, etc.) and by my senior year actively got involved.
I joined the high school play and got second largest part as well as the Student Representative Council and found my niches among the high school community. Along with that, worked out and now I'm in great shape and feel more confident about myself. Have an updated wardrobe with clothes that fit and a good hairstyle that actually looks good. met some cool people and than fricken enjoyed High School. Now I'm in University I'm not making the same mistake twice. I'm actively seeking new groups/organizations to join and trying my hardest to meet new people. I'm Currently part of the Management Students Association, Social Coordinator for my drama group, an offer to join the Improv Club (didn't fit my schedule) and The Stock Market Challenge club.
If you honestly get off your ass every so often and do these things like learning a daily workout routine, grooming and people skills, eat more healthy, etc. you will love every moment of your High School/Uni life. I'm still an introvert though haha!
EPT
, most of them failed at high school.
