With the first marking period over, NPHS freshmen are finally able to process the differences between high school and middle school for themselves. 

From different phone rules to the contrasting schedules, high school and middle school both have their advantages and disadvantages, according to freshmen Reena Silvester and Maggie Horan.

Compared to middle school, Silvester feels that high school is more difficult, and has been assigned with more work to do each night. With her honors classes and busy sports schedule, Silvester has found herself staying up later than last year to finish her homework. 

 “[High school] has been a lot of work and has been really hard to manage,” she said.

Although her experience so far has been hard, she doesn’t feel that everything about it has been negative. Silvester likes that the phone rules are less strict and explained how the hour long classes have their perks: “It’s nice because I have more time for assignments and experiments.”

She admitted it may be hard to focus in longer class periods, but they allow for students to get more work done in class. 

Despite liking high school better, Horan explains that the grading is one of the several difficulties of transitioning into high school. 

“The grading is more harsh in high school than in middle school,” she said.

In terms of the amount of homework she gets, Horan said: “It varies from day to day.”

Some days, she will get homework from many of her classes, while other days she gets barely any. 

Horan also had to balance her schoolwork and sport, since she played on the soccer team during the fall season. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult as she thought it would be.

She said: “I usually got home at about 5:30 everyday, and I was just able to do it.”

Going from having a sports practice twice a week in middle school to everyday in high school is easier than many think, especially with a study hall. 

Silvester and Horan both agree that time management and balancing are very important skills necessary in the change from middle school to high school in order to be successful. Without these skills, Silvester and Horan explained how students would fall behind on their work and be unable to keep up. 

The transition from middle school to high school has many obstacles, but is a great experience for students. It teaches many life lessons, and also has proved that it has advantages. Although it can be a big adjustment for eighth graders to become freshmen, it is easy to settle in by the end of the first marking period.