How is/How was High School for you?

[ReizoSan]

Well we don't have a high school as such, we have primary then secondary then college or uni.
I would say my secondary school life was ok not amazing but i live in a small town so its different from most people, it was good that for me it was all friendly MOST of the time, it was real easy well for me to talk so making new friends was easy especially girl friends as i know quite a lot of girls but its probably easier i would of thought in a town.
it was quite layed back when i look back now, never got much work and finished school at like 3:00 and only lived like 10 mins away so it was a slow life which was great, but college is great and hard, traveling is stupid 30 minutes on train which is ok but the train times are stupid (1 every 1hr 15mins)
but i find people winging about school annoys me its fun you don't do much work and get so much free time its insane just a message to people still at school that its gets harder .

[Cold~as~Ice]

both good and bad. good because I made some interesting friends, played sports, went on dates,homecomings etc.
what I didn't like about it was like said before the feud between latinos and blacks from freshman to sophmore year. to me the best experience was once I graduated it's like ending a chapter in your life to start a new one.

I'm interested how high school is in different countries other than the U.S

[Otarusama]

Haha I was waifu'd up all through high school which was a bit of a double-edged sword. Really loved my girlfriend of the time (we made it 6 years and broke up in college), but also neglected some of my good friends because of her which is a total douche move.

Got to play sports, play in band and jazz band, and sing in a decent choir. I wouldn't choose to relive my high school years given the chance, but I have no regrets at all about the time I spent during them.

[Gamer_2k4]

Originally Posted by Otarusama

I wouldn't choose to relive my high school years given the chance, but I have no regrets at all about the time I spent during them.

Basically this. High school was a necessary component of my life that I wouldn't want back, but it wasn't the "best days of my life" or anything like that. A lot of people love high school to the point of fixating on it (see: any anime ever), but not me. It was just another aspect of my childhood.

[MUAHAHAHAHAHA]

There are the good and the bad side of it.

Good side:
Friendship

During my teenage years, when hormones and emotions were running high, I experienced the beautiful and the ugly side of friendship. Plenty of hugs, girls night out, shopping trips, gossiping, backstabbing, angry tears, betrayals, etc,etc. I underwent a significant character development because of those experiences. Through my interaction with others, I discovered many things about myself.

Bad side:
School discipline

My school confers considerable power to teachers when it comes to discipline. Teahers are given the okay to do anything to students deemed troublesome or even shows the slightest form of misconduct/disobedience. Because of this, it is easy for some teachers to accidentally slip into situations where punishments are given in the interest of convenient administration rather than in relation to the task of educating. They may not realize however, that coercive tactics breed resentment. When humiliated with punishment, students may feel ashamed to the extent they could not reflect and take responsibility for their actions. A friend of mine during Science lesson was playing around after he was done with his work. He threw a paper plane to another friend of mine that was unfortunately seen by my teacher. She got up and started reprimanding him. From a simple reprimand, it slowly descended into insults hurled at his family and his upbringing. I was angry for him, but I could do nothing because I was a coward then, and so were my other friends. We did not stand up for him because we were cowed with fear. I still do not understand till this day why the teacher had to insult him like that. I would have understood if my friend fought back but no, poor guy was just standing and listening to her insulting him. Then lastly, he was ordered to wear a humiliating signboard during lunch time. What effect will such "punishment" cause? It will be seen as a privilege wielded by teachers playing the role of absolute dictator. With a negative perception of punishment, they would take punishment at face value. This might result in misconception among students that having received punishment, the need to experience remorse for their actions has diminished. I also feel that some students may be resentful that they are not treated with more respect and understanding, and proceed to do the same to the teacher. Worse, erring students might even resort to acts of violence in an effort to rebel against such external strictures. My teacher was "lucky" that my friend did not resort to violence even though she overstepped her boundaries.

I do soooooo wish that teachers would realize that students do not naturally acquire healthy self-image. Looking-glass self begins from young and students’ development of self continually changes contingent upon their interaction with members of the society. Students interpret what teachers and their friends think of them, and project these interpretations unto themselves. It stands to reason that perpetual coercive tactics such as public display of anger inflicted on them will eventually result in them being labelled as “problematic”. Punishment equates to recalcitrance, and when students receive one, they suffer disgrace for not acting like a good member of society. After a few times, they slowly become disengage with learning because they no longer see the importance of it. During my teenage years, I was very talkative and active, chattering non-stop. My teachers labelled me as troublemaker. All I did was talk, which I understood was very annoying but to the extent of labelling me as a troublemaker was not something I could agree with. It was very demotivating. I was a teenager with a pretty developed brain and was capable of reasoning. Why couldn't they try to talk to me nicely? They didn't even bother calling me by my name. Most of the time they just called me troublemaker. Heck, they might as well give me a prison number. I would have liked that better. If I could return to the past, I would tell them on the face that what purpose is there to seek education if I am but a mere troublemaker?

School curriculum

My school was awesome. The teachers were awesome. The students were awesome. Teacher comes in, opens textbook, tell students to memorize the entire bloody chapter, then sits down to monitor. The dumb students follow and score 100 in tests without truly understanding the concept. It makes the whole idea of education like a joke, no?

[Kakashi]

High school was a blast for me. The earlier years were particularly great, before we had anything that resembled responsibility. At the beginning of high school (4 years in the UK, starting from year 7 to year 11) the year split into tutor groups of 30 or so students who would stick together throughout the rest of high school. We had nearly all of our classes together, and saw each other every day. As a result I formed strong bonds with a lot of people in my class, and am still good friends with my main group of friends. We would do everything together, inside and outside of school. Parties, cinema, swimming, bowling, school trips. It's not like I was popular or anything, I just felt at home with my tutor group. I don't think I've ever laughed so much than I did in some of my lessons, we had a lot of funny and weird kids to make classes entertaining, even though that meant sometimes we didn't learn a whole lot with all the pranks. I'll never forget those years.

[Ruby Princess]

I didn't care much for the workload, but I did have sex with about 80-90 guys during my four years there so it wasn't such a bad experience overall. :3

[Kyero Fox]

Changing schools every year or a half sucks. I hardly got to make friends and I could never finish a part of the lessons or ended up in the middle of them. Every school i went to was filled with ass holes and bullies.

Luckly i managed to make a few friends who I still talk to and some i hang out with.

Wasn't... 100% bad.. but 90%

[Kirito]

In high school I just did my school work, practiced my writing skills, hung out with friends, worked at a part-time job, played video games and watched anime. Cycle repeats and before you knew I was finished. Well, I hated my high school years and I never had an "anime style" romance or kissed a girl during my 4 years of high school...it still pains remembering that "shudders".

[Dr. Casey]

The four most miserable years of my life.

[Rising Dragon]

My first gym teacher had the gall to tell me that my high school years would be the best years of my life. This infuriated me, because at that point, and as the years would progress, showed that my time in high school was absolutely miserable regardless of how much I tried to make things better.

But the absolute worst part? So far, my teacher has been right. ._.

[Ledgem]

Old comment heap thread, brought back four years later. I'll contribute my experiences anyway, just in case someone's actually going through all of these comments with interest.

Like some others, I remember hearing from one of the staff that high school would be "the best years of my life," but I didn't much care for it. Where I grew up it was standard that most of the students were the same starting from elementary school and the class sizes were small (~100 students), so we all knew each other and it just felt stagnant. You couldn't reinvent yourself, and personal growth felt restricted. I was always looking ahead, and knew that where I was at the moment, I couldn't really contribute to anything. I felt that life would really begin after high school.

It's been about nine years since I graduated high school. Since then I've developed much closer into the person that I wanted to be. I've become much busier, but it's work that I feel is worthwhile. I occasionally look back fondly on those days when I could spend hours playing video games and watching anime; games feel tedious to me now, and it's often a squeeze to even watch (and remember to watch) even one episode of anime per week. I wouldn't want to return to that lifestyle, though.

As far as I'm concerned, my best days are still ahead of me. It has been on a fairly consistent upward trend since high school.

[Goshin]

I spent my First Three years in a high school in Brooklyn, and the last year in a High School in Pennsylvania, it was two very differing experiences.

Before I entered my high school I was so scare because they told me it was a bad school and I might get jumped. I spent those three years as a relative nobody. My best memories and experiences probably involves my decision to join the FIRST Robotics team. Although we were all mostly nerds but were nerds united,

High School Life In PA was very different. everyone seemed to know me because I was one of the very few black kids in the school. I was respected a lot more(fear?) and was actually kinda popular this time. I was still nerdy but never found other people to be nerdy with. I did get a lot of my black friends into anime though .

[iceyfw]

my high school years was pretty much shit great and my last year as a senior was so horrible i had a falling out with my so-called "friends" so memorable. i'm enjoying the college life unlike like i did in high school.

[NoemiChan]

High School is the best ever!!! The cute classmates, the Faction clashes ( girls vs boys) and the J-S prom!!!!

[Destined_Fate]

Horrible... I felt dumb, we were always stuck on the same material too long. However since I was shy(Army Boot Camp helped me get over there without treating me like I was stupid) they believed I was stupid, and sent me to those boring "Special" classes where I learned nothing and had nothing to do there because the material was that simple(There's a problem if I can finish all my class work for the period in the first 10-15 minutes), even though I was having no problems aceing any of their tests. Eventually I started just not showing up since the only good thing about High School was all the friends I made there. Even than I had enough being treated like a tool and would later drop out and get my GED(Much easier than they made it out to be) in a few weeks. It was pointless staying, I was literally learning nothing.

Turns out I got High School all wrong. You aren't supposed to learn anything meaningful and really, as far as the world is concerned you literaly learn nothing there. Unless, you know, you take other languages and even that is severely limited. It's just to see if you're willing to deal with the boring BS for 4 years and get that Diploma to say "Hey, you showed up!". A diploma that means very little in the world compared to years ago.

Didn't help that I had 5 brothers and my parents didn't have the money for school lunch for all of us, but made too much for aid, so I was pretty much malnourished in High School, and running on empty during the school day since no real breakfast either, yet I still managed to do better than most of my peers in something as simple as PE or weight lifting.

At least I can say I had some amazing girlfriends in High School so at least there's that. Haven't fallen so madly in love ever since though, so... Eh.

[Lenaisian]

It came to my mind recently... and I'm asking myself: "What if I changed myself during HS days?" "What if I had fun experiences during my HS days?" but whatever, past is past.

HS for me is just a bunch of bullshit (sorry for my slightly profane rant). The university that I have studied for four menacing years is just a bunch of bullshit and lies despite its "HOLY" image (the name of my uni is Holy Angel University, located on Angeles City in the province of Pampanga). In one class, the minimum amount of students could reach to 50, and the max is 55 ~ 60. The teachers are having a hard time focusing on us students, so it's just self-study when you got home. HS for me is just like the survival of the fittest, where gangs and fraternities rule. and the meek ones are being victimized by the bullies.

First two years have broke me down into tears (yes, I CRIED), and when I became a third year HS student, I became cold-hearted (or more likely, apathetic. I don't get close with my classmates in my own section, rather I get close to other students outside my section), violent (not that violent-as-if-I-carried-the-warrior-gene type... I got into a few fights inside and outside school), lawless (I smoked inside campus grounds, but I never brought drugs inside. I also admit that I brought harmful weapons such as a low-class plastic airsoft gun modeled after a Glock 18 pistol and a stencil cutter, which ended up being confiscated by my PhysEd teacher at that time), and always defiant against authority (the worst case is when I became a fourth-year HS student. My adviser is some strict teacher who thinks that she is f*ckin' authority and she can create a chink into my cold armor. She couldn't make me fail in her subject matter though). Even my Scouting experience isn't good, overall. First two years are fun. My third year became a nightmare. Last year is a total mess, where the newer members on my batch became officers and I am still a f*ckin' member (I haven't held even a scribe position on my four years).

Overall, my HS experience is f*cked-up at best, and it makes me want to puke on a urinal like a drunk who had reached rock-bottom whenever I remember it.

[hero147]

I loved high school for the first 3 years or so. My last year of high school was filled with responsibility and stress. Looking back at it now, I feel like I lost a year of my childhood. I was in the IB programme, so teachers would "predict" our marks based on how well they thought we would do on our IB exams and these were the marks that were sent off to university. I live in Canada, so these were the only marks being sent in and acceptance tinged on these marks.

During the later half of the year, we had big assessments worth like 80% of our predicted mark. Fuck one up, kiss your dream school goodbye and every one of these big assignments and exams happened in January. I averaged 4 hours a night that month. Very stressful year, worse than what University has put out so far. =X. Oh and I hate university with a fiery grudge, so much work and so much responsibility makes me a dull boy.

[Paradoxine]

I'm guessing we're talking about secondary school (I live in the UK). Anyway, secondary school for me was terrible. At the best of times, it was boring as hell, at the worst of times It nigh on took my will to live. The work was either really boring and easy or boring and really easy. The people, well, I don't like other people at the best of times and in a sense secondary school just gave me ample opportunity to distance myself from everyone else. I had 'friends' of course, but in reality it was just to pass the time.

On to college, still terrible, still don't have any friend's who I really respect or want to be around to any great extent. I'm not saying I'm this great person who is a model for the human species, but this is just how I feel, I don't have a choice in the matter. The work got harder, obviously, I took Computing, Physics, Chemistry and Further maths in my first year.

Chemistry was more boring and more difficult than I'd envisioned, Further maths was just a complete and utter mess, going to have to retake the EASIER exams next year (I did far better in the 'harder' exams, probably due to the difficulty).

Physics has always been my subject of choice so no real problems there, bit boring at time's but it's workable. Very disappointed with my likely grade though(B), I was aiming for an A or higher but that's just life I guess.

Computing was piss easy, though yet again I aced the 'harder' exam and failed the 'easy' exam because it was boring as hell.

All in all, not satisfied with my education. In my second year I'll likely be retaking 4 modules. I'm by no means exempt from blame for my lacklustre performance, but for sure It could have been better. At this point the social aspect of education is non-existent so the only thing left to do is complete my second year and go get a degree, hopefully.

Tangent
If I'm to be honest here, the day I have a stable job that pays well and my own living space is the day that I stop interacting with anyone outside the workplace. I just don't see the point.

[Sir Maddy]

High school for me can only be summarized in 2 words: Absolute shit.