Considering the various “Ask the…” threads, here is a thread for questions on the life of a high school student. For clarification I go to a public suburban high school in California.
You are a whole lot more than just a high school student, Qin, but I have a few.
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What grade are you in?
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What classes do you like the most?
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What is the most difficult?
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Who is the best teacher you’ve had? Why?
What’s the one thing that you would change about high school if you could?
And what’s the one thing that you would keep the same?
And
- Do you think you are smarter, dumber, or about average intelligence for a HS student? Basically, when you look around, how do you think you rate? Why?
With wikipedia and the internet, is studying really easy?
I graduated college just as wikipedia was gaining steam (2004). Looking back, and having done a few wiki searches on things that gave me trouble, I feel like if I had to do school over again it would be easy with the explosion of free, online knowledge.
I might have been among the last class that went to a physical library and pulled physical books (scientific and engineering journals, mostly) off the shelf to study.
/chemical engineer
10th grade, sophomore year.
AP European History, I’ve always liked history which’s my best subject.
Chemistry because I tend to procrastinate in it because its the last period in my day and thus I do other homework and studies first.
Probably my 9th grade Geography teacher. She was very humourous and interesting and helped make the subject interesting and fascinating to the students.
Expand the foreign languages department. Our school offers only three languages.
Probably the idea of starting high school late on Monday so students can sleep in a bit. 
I don’t want to sound arrogant but I do think I’m more “book smart” that other high school students. Definately a lot less smart on lots of practical stuff due to Asperger’s.
What languages does your school offer? What others would you like to see offered, and why?
Why do you think we need to ask a kid anything? We probably all went to high school.
(1) I last went to high school about 50 years ago. Things may have changed since then.
(2) High schools vary from place to place. My youngest son went to high school in Australia for 4 years (grades 7, 8, 11 and 12) and in the U.S. for 2 years (grades 9 and 10), and he found a lot of differences between the experiences.
Do you envy or pity us old-timers who went to high school 40 or 50 years ago? I am grateful the internet did not exist then–it was bad enough being bullied and teased in front of my class; being bullied and teased in front of the whole world would have been insupportable.
Though I must admit doing research must be easier now–in my day we went to The Library and took out The Book. If someone else was using The Book, we waited.
As the parent of two pre-teens who will be starting HS in the next few years, I’m curious- are HS kids having as much casual sex as the reports will have us believe? Is sexting as commonplace as it seems? Is oral sex as freely given as makeout sessions were back in the day?
I don’t think he will know anything about this sort of stuff.
Are there any out LGBT students at your school? How are they treated?
What time are your lunch periods? The last time I worked with kids in junior high and high school, some of their lunch periods were absurdly early, even given the early start to their day.
I went to a Spanish High School, completely different animal.
How much of an input did you have on choosing your school? What other options (if any) did you and your family consider?
How much time do you have between periods? Do you have the option of bringing your own lunches or buying them from the school? If you can buy them from the school, is it a meal plan or do you pay meal by meal? How many students bring food vs buy it?
What single thing (item, idea etc) would make your school day more enjoyable than it is right now?
Do you have classes where you get to debate your political views, either as part of an assignment or through feedback to the teacher? How were your expressed views taken by the rest of the class and the teacher?
Do you and your schoolmates worry about loss of privacy in the Internet age?
Your privacy is partially protected by posting here with the pseudonym Qin. Do you worry that answering specific questions here will lead to your identity with Qin being more widely known?
(I’m old enough that in that not-so-distant future, few will know or care about anything septimus wrote. But you’ve got decades ahead of you…)
Why do high school students think that teachers don’t know what they are doing, when they are looking at their crotch with their hands between their legs?
Don’t be a perv- they are texting! And not hiding it very well.
How much did the recent shootings at Chardon High School get discussed at your school?
Do you guys have a “lockdown” procedure like they had in Chardon? That is, a practiced procedure that goes into effect when there is a violent person/shooter in the school.