While I was still living in Brazil as a 7th grader, the idea of studying in a completely different country was absolutely daunting for me. Since I didn’t have close friends that lived abroad, I couldn’t ask for a reference on what studying in a foreign school would be like. Naturally, I went to search for videos on what school would be, and what I found almost made me beg my parents to not go to an American school. Videos that most of the time were titled “how to survive (this specific) grade, because it is going to be one of your most terrible experiences in life”, were all over my page. And the worst part was that those videos didn’t even apply to high school years.
So as a current sophomore in high school, I have noticed that those videos probably have a higher impact on students’ lives than people might think, and that most of those grades talked about in videos apply for all of middle school and high school. The natural thought that people will have is: “But is there a grade that isn’t bad and will turn my life a nightmare?”, and I came to the conclusion that it all depends on you.
Firstly, the most common thing that vloggers say on those videos is that grades won’t matter in middle school, and that you basically don’t “need” to try. You should be doing the complete opposite. Coming prepared to high school will make you stronger and with a much less possibility that you will struggle in future years. Second, school won’t be hard for you if you know your resources and be mindful of your responsibilities. Teachers will always be there to help you, and showing them that you care about what you are doing is going to imply that you want to learn. Finishing projects and assignments before the due date is going to be really important. And lastly, influencers mostly say that your grade is the worst without any explanation of why. It is true that material will become more complex as you progress, but that doesn’t mean that it is going to be your absolute downfall. The truth is that being in your “worst year possible” will never apply to every single student of the same age as you. For some students that year is going to be the worst year of their lives, but that doesn’t mean that it will apply to you. Some days will be worse than others, and that is a fact, but everything eventually gets better, one way or another. In life, there will always be people that appreciate you, even when you think you are alone.
