I am a Freshman in High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. I have never been one to really hate school, but this year I really do. Here is why………

Administrators and Teachers tell us students all the time that we should spend two hours studying for each credit we receive. So here is a list of all of my classes for semester one….

   Preparing for College/Career = One credit
   Advanced Choir = One Credit
   French = Once Credit
   Honors Biology = One Credit
   Honors English = One Credit
   Honors Geometry = One Credit

So that is a total of six credits. If you do the math two hours per each credit you are earning that is twelve hours. So i’m not sure of the hours of your school day but mine is 7:25 a.m. to 2:20 p.m. If you ride the bus, which I do sometimes, you won’t get home until 3:20-3:30. We are supposed to get about 9-10 hours of sleep because our brain is still developing (I only know this because my parents get on me for sleeping). In my case in order to catch the bus I have to get up at 5:30 so that would mean I would need to fall asleep, not get in bed, but fall asleep no later than 8:30, but anywhere between that and 7:30. That is just crazy isn’t it. There is physical no way that you can get home at 3:30 and study for twelve hours and still get to bed no later than 8:30. Not including time to eat or shower if you do that at night.

So if that isn’t enough our parents encourage, and if they don’t then again those same administrators and teachers encourage or suggest to get involved in a club or sport because colleges what to see people active in the community. Well I don’t mind that I am a swimmer and I participate in the musicals and plays, but here lies the problem. Most of those clubs or sports are practicing until 6:30 or in cases like this last month for me 9-9:30. That is not going home and going back to school later after you have had time to do some homework, that is right after school. One that would give me like two hours for homework before I would need to go to bed so I can be well rested, or no time at all. Not to mention most sports also have morning practice at 4:30, then again moving the time I need to be in bed by earlier.

Then even more on top of that you have parents nagging you because they think you should get a job. Well you are already out of time, not even enough to watch TV or do something kid/teen related for even a minute. So how are you supposed to work on top of that? You can’t there is no physical way to be two places at once, trust me I wish there was. I also believe parents think that too. Speaking of parents they work and when they do, they ask you to watch your little sibling. Well between after school activities and a job you don’t have time for that. Man this is getting fun why don’t we add in some more items that people expect us to get done. How about cleaning your room, cleaning your bathroom, unload the dishwasher, take care of any pets, and do laundry just to name a few. Man that is a lot of stuff to do. All on top of figuring out who you really are, what you want to be when you grow up, how to get there, what are right and wrong choices,  who are good people to hang around, and staying away from drugs and alcohol.

I believe that all of this could be the reason why students are dropping out, because it is too much to try and handle. I think that if teachers, other administrators, parents, and fellow peers would not put so much stress on us, we would want to stay in school. If we feel like we have to do every single thing I just named of students are going to feel that the rest of life is just going to get harder. Which it very may could, but if students continue to throw away their high school diploma than they aren’t going to be able to find out if life gets easier, or if life gets harder because they won’t have a good job and they won’t have the energy to try because they know what happened last time. If people would take less stress off of everyone things would be very different, same with people.