I didn’t like it, going to class was a PITA, I had a hundred things I’d rather do than go to school.
That said, I did have some good friends, and classes were occasionally amusing.
Freshman year was the worst of my life, worse even than junior high which was hell.
Sophomore year, things dramatically improved; junior year I spent abroad (very difficult, rewarding, but not very like high school), and senior year was pretty good.
College was a huge improvement. In my family we pretty much just told each other to hang on until college. (There are 5 of us.)
My school too, and I was able to confirm it recently with someone who also went there but whom I hadn’t seen in over 25 years. Being smart and/or an academic standout was worth pretty much nothing, it was actually a negative in a lot of ways.
NinetyWt if you went to my school I would have totally had a crush on you.
I would have been too shy to talk to you, but…crush city.
Hated it. I’d never go back.
A couple of good teachers, a couple of friends, and tater tots in the cafeteria. Other than that, hardly a good memory to be found of that time.
It was literally the worst period of my life.
I have it better now, but life was nice then too.
I was no standout academically but I was in charge of a lot of nerdy extracurriculars. I had no bullies nor were there bitchy popular girls hassling me. Generally, I didn’t give a shit what my classmates thought or did, but they seemed to like me anyway. Teachers seemed to like me too. I was getting along really well with my parents. I worked on weekends and always had money. College loomed and it was exciting to think about. My only problems were related to boys, one in particular, and that lasted until the middle of college.
Awww, you’re so sweet to say that LL!
But that was one problem … if you’d been labeled ugly way back when, you stayed in that category. Plus, the beauty ideal was very stereotypical there. Money was apparently part of the equation - even the homliest of rich girls had beaus. I never had a singe date in HS.
I was a GOOD student because of laziness. I scoped out early on that if you made good grades, they’d leave you alone.
I avoided being bullied in HS (as opposed to JHS) by realizing that I had to get in a public fight early in 10th grade. It didn’t matter whether I won or not (though I did); the point was to dissuade bullies from thinking of me as easy meat.
I’d get expelled nowadays, of course.
I hated every second of high school. You couldn’t pay me to do it again. After I graduated I vowed I’d never step foot inside that building again and I’ve kept that vow for four years now.
As for life after high school, I think this Onion article sums it up for me. Nice to know life gets better, huh.
High school was mostly okay for me. I was shy and not terribly popular, but I didn’t care to be popular so that never bothered me. I spent most of my time with my nose in a book or hanging out with my best friend and a couple of others, writing endless collaborative stories.
My grades were great and I loved the educational part of school. All my teachers liked me and I like them. Since I’m female, I didn’t get hassled about being a “brain,” but I was pretty competitive about trying to be the best academically (which I was in my chosen subjects, and pretty close to the best in the others).
Still, though, I wouldn’t repeat it. I didn’t like living at home because my mother was overprotective and didn’t let me do much socially (not that I wanted to most of the time, but the few times I did want to go to a party, it was a hassle). Also, there was a small group of loser girls who used to bug me for whatever reason, and I wasn’t confident enough yet to nail them to the wall with my superior verbal skills (these girls were, shall we say, not the top of the academic heap, and unfortunately even these days I usually freeze up and don’t think of a properly scathing remark until I’m far removed from the situation), so I let them get under my skin.
So yeah, high school was a mixed bag. Mostly good, some bad. College was orders of magnitude better, though. Independence suited me and I realized that being geeky was not only okay, but admired in some circles.
It wasn’t great for me, but looking back it was far better than I had any right to expect for someone with zero social skills. Especially after hearing horror stories from other people.
I certainly wasn’t popular, and I didn’t date, but those things were never all that important to me anyway. I didn’t fit in with any of the typical social groups, but I somehow managed (through no conscious actions of my own, I assure you) to find a place on the periphery of whichever group I happened to be near. I think I was helped by the fact that I made no effort to force myself into any particular group. Therefore I was never in the position of showing myself as an “outsider”, and I didn’t alienate myself from any other opposing group.
I guess I existed outside the normal social order. I didn’t respond in the “proper” ways and apparently most people generally liked me.
Either that or I was so creepy everyone pretended to be nice for fear that I would show up one day and blow up the school…
It was fine in the sense of what people usually complain about. I went to an academics focused public school that was set up like a college. There was little to no emphasis on sports-we usually had the best track team in the state so that should give you an inkling. Maybe I wouldn’t have fared so well in a more typical high school somewhere else in the country.
All that said, it was an academic pressure pot. I grew up in a town where people’s parents work at Harvard or MIT or BU or BC. My mother and father put a metric ton of pressure on me and my sister to perform-and they weren’t that different from any of the other parents in town. My classmates were hyper-competitive and I got sucked into the whole atmosphere. Just to give you an idea-my school had eliminated class rank, valedictorian, AP classes…and kids would still have public breakdowns over the ignominy of having to attend Brandeis or Tufts (this was in the late 90s before both schools became even more selective, but they were both “backup” schools for most kids).
Looking back, our entitled upper middle class tragedies come off kind of hilarious. But back then it was serious bidniss, yo.
Not good…not bad…
College was much, much better!
I quite enjoyed it.
I had good friends that I’m still close to even though I’ve moved halfway across the country, classes were generally interesting, and I really enjoyed playing in the band. It wasn’t all sunshine & roses, but then again nothing is; I had a good time.
Ah, the Heinlein theory as espoused by Lazurus Long. I was largely left alone and my silly multiple-choice testing kept me in the top classes but if I did not like a class, I did just enough to pass it and that was it. I did drive my guidance counselor insane and he called me the worst chronic underachiever he had ever seen.
As a freshman one idiot of a junior liked to harassed some of the geekier or smaller frosh. He was really tough on my one friend Peter and after one incident I caught him on the stairs and gave his a good push. I told him if he ever messed with any of my friends again I would kill him instead. He left us alone after that and no one else bothered us. I only had one other incident and it was resolved far more peaceably.
BTW: A prior thread: Did you enjoy high school? - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board
At the time I thought it sucked, but in looking back, I think I created many of my own problems. I would do it again, but I would definitely do it differently.
It was mostly bad. I was depressed and had no friends for the first two years. Things picked up a little in junior year, but everything was still so, so, incredibly awkward. I had a lot of climbing to do.
Would not repeat.
The only things I miss was the annual mission trips to Mexico everything spring break, to build houses. Those were the highlights of my year. Summer camps were pretty cool, too. And the horse-back riding lessons.
Still. Never again.
I loved it and had a fantastic time.
It’s really hard to say. I had tons of fun and laughed a lot, but didn’t really like teenagers and often felt powerless, like 90 percent of our school stuff was pointless busy work (and it was). My school was pretty good, with good grades earning people more cred than sports stats. But I do occasionally catch myself looking back at it fondly, and I have to remind myself that being a teen was pretty crappy, if only because of hormones.
There were some horrible, painful periods, but even then I remember thinking ‘This is a blip on the radar. No one’s going to give a shit about high school in ten years.’ I repeated this to a few friends who were having a rough time. By our last year, I think everyone sensed it, and lots of people who’d squabbled over petty drama sort of came together.
I was half right. Damn Facebook.
My inadvertant method was me and a few friends took Karate for a couple of years and I guess word got around. I probably would have gotten my ass kicked in a real fight with one of the toughs but nobody bothered to find out.