Poll: Was high school mostly good or mostly bad for you?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Mostly good. I had a cheerleader girlfriend for most of the time, I played DnD with the geeks, smoked weed with the stoners, took auto shop with the Mexicans, worked on farms and ranches during the summer with the cowboys etc. I played a couple of sports but we didn’t really have a “jock” stereotype at my school as all of the boys’ teams sucked…tough to be a tough football jock when the team is 1-9.

I have my 20-year reunion coming up this fall and I’m looking forward to it. I still run around with the same group of guys (just now with wives and kids in tow) but there are a number of people that I haven seen that I hope will show up.

62

That’s a good way of putting it. While I think that other people made the junior high years bad for me, I made some of high school bad for myself. I had major perfectionism issues, so that schoolwork was always way more of a chore than it needed to be. (Actual academic demands in university put things into perspective.)

Once I got over grade seven and eight a bit and realized that I wasn’t in an episode of an American teen TV show, I made some good friends (who, surprisingly, I’m still good friends with today).

High school was also great for extracurriculars. Once the playing field grew in university, I wasn’t good enough to do any of the same things - band, newspaper, etc. - but I loved doing them in high school.

63

Thanks to my father chasing rainbows or whatever, I went to three different high schools in Dallas. I hated every minute of every one of them. I would not care to repeat the experience.

64

High school was just school for me. My mom sent me to an all girls Catholic high school in hopes that the nuns would have some calming effect on me, or at least not put up with any of my shit. I got good grades without really trying so I got along with the smart kids and I had could get better pot than anyone else so I got along with the (5 other) stoners too. There’s not much excitement when you’re surrounded by good little Catholic girls and no boys. I was a smart-ass and got in trouble for mouthing off a lot but there’s only so much they can do to you if you have an A average and an after-school job. Real life happened in our neighborhoods when we weren’t at school and that’s where we had fun and got into trouble. I enjoyed it all but if I were to get a do-over I’d pick my mid-twenties instead.

65

I had a good time in High School, although I didn’t always have the best relationship with my father at the time. Could it have been better? Sure, but almost nothing is perfect. I dated a lot, had good friends, wasn’t picked on, was liked by most of the teachers. Net, sure I’d do it again. Not forever, though.

I should note that my school was fairly new so didn’t have the cast in stone cliques like the first school I attended. The freaks, geeks, jocks, gearheads, sluts, stoners, dweebies, and bandfags all sort of intermingled. The school hadn’t yet learned to put ourselves into tidy categories.

66

Both great and terrible. Great because I had a wide social network. My friends weren’t the most popular or the least popular. I was heavily involved in most school activities (symphonic band, jazz band, theater, NHS, yearbook, etc) I got a ton of ego stroking from the teachers because I was gifted academically, but I learned early on not to be an ass about it, so none of the other students resented me. I had lots of friendly relationships with lots of different people, and was picked on occasionally but not often.

Terrible because my home life was shit piled upon more shit. Academics is the only area in which I had a shred of self-esteem, and even though I was consistently excellent I was certain that this time I was going to really fuck it up. I was losing my mind but putting on a brave front, always being the therapist to other students while being incredibly selective about who I bitched to about my own home life (and definitely being selective in what information I revealed.)

As a consequence I felt alienated in a lot of ways. I related more to the ‘‘troubled’’ kids than the smart, nerdy kids even though everyone else saw me that way. I remember a good friend of mine, also a high achiever, having a fucking conniption because her parents bought her sister a new car for her 16th, but not her. I felt like she’d come from another planet. What was I supposed to say? ‘‘Yeah, that’s a real drag. My Mom busted out the kitchen window again and then declared she was going to kill herself and drove off somewhere. I’m not really sure if she’s coming back. I guess it’s a bad week for both of us.’’ Still, I managed okay. I felt I had friends who cared. It was mostly a good situation.

My senior year still ranks as the absolute worst experience of my life, mostly because my social network fell apart. As soon as people see that you need support from them for a change, they bail. Maybe I wasn’t as truly abandoned as I felt, but the perception was sufficient to wreck my year (and challenge my trust in human beings for a long time to come.) I skipped school so much I got one of those, ‘‘miss one more day and you don’t graduate’’ letters. The days I attended school, I spent a great deal of time in the bathroom crying. I’m thrilled I went through that, because I doubt it’s ever going to get much worse.

67

I didn’t “like” it, but I liked being 14-18 years old for the most part. Played some sports (not that crazy about sports). Dated some girls (not as many as I would have liked but whatever). Wasn’t a super big partier until I got to college but we had enough fun.

Pretty much got along with everyone. Enjoyed my 5 and 10 year reunions. Liked some teachers. Hated others. Had a couple of crappy jobs.

For some reason paintball was really popular in my town. We actually had a team of about 15 core guys (mostly soccer/hockey/football jocks) and another dozen or so “walk-ons” and used to play like every other sunday.

Basically, high school felt like a crappy job where you like a lot of your coworkers.
I reconnected with a lot of high school people on Facebook. It’s kind of funny seeing what many of them are doing 15 years later.

68

Mostly good. I was somewhat popular, even though I was in band and was valedictorian - I was one of those that had friends in every clique. I drank like a fish, partied my ass off, there were some bad things but not too much.

I wouldn’t do it again, though.

69

It was a great time. I was pretty popular, was on multiple sports teams, doing well academically, had great teachers and had very little in the way of pressure (although it didn’t feel like it at the time).

70

I ran THE black market club which served alcohol*, did pretty well in grades, my parents were to concerned about my younger siblings so I had a lot of leeway… ETA: I was a popular guy to know, but not the guy who got the ladies

but I didn’t loose my virginity until after (damn my business sense and awkwardenss) and lost most of my friends afterwards**.

So no, I wouldn’t want to re-live those days.

*smuggled in from Denmark in most elaborate ways
**except those that matter, so that’s a neutral

71

It sucked. If I’d gone to school in a city, where there were more outlets and options, and the geek clique was bigger, I probably would have done all right, but I went to several different high schools in rural Pennsylvania, and it wasn’t easy. Our towns always seemed to be racist, backward, and boring. A lot of my classmates wound up in prison, so you could probably guess how easy it was to be around them when you were a geek.

The courses were boring, and I wasn’t very interested in studying anyway. I helped myself by getting into shape and going out for sports, but it was still hard. In addition, life at home sucked even worse than school. My parents were NOT cut out for the countryside, and they gradually went insane. I mean that quite literally.

When I think back to high school, I just remember how stressed out and tired I was all the time. I had to maintain my grades and get honor roll to avoid being grounded, I had sports practice, and I had all these different subjects, most of which I hated. It felt like I was fighting the whole school and my family and myself just to stay afloat, and damn, I was exhausted. Army life was hard, but everything I ran into there I’d already seen in high school.

There’s not enough money in the world to get me to go back. I’m not into playing games like how I would handle things differently if I could go back with what I know now. I’d rather use what I know now to improve the present. You know, where I’m free and far, far away from insane family members.

On edit: On the other hand, I did get laid in my senior year, and I lettered in a couple of sports, and I developed a healthy sense of black humor in school, so it wasn’t all bad. But I’m glad it’s behind me now.

72

Pretty much.

I was the genial guy that got along with most everybody ( teachers and students ), without being particularly popular or central to anything ( pretty much describes my life’s trajectory, really :stuck_out_tongue: ). No real ostracizing, never picked on, a few closer friends and a wide circle of friendly acquaintances, but also not a fixture on the social scene. Vaguely nerdy, but with passable ( not outstanding, mind you ) social skills. Non-athletic, but also a non-excelling lazy student that got everything from superb to shit grades depending on my interest level. Only had one close friend that I stuck with beyond a year or two after HS and haven’t even talked to him in years.

I skated by without any real incident or trauma, but I don’t miss it or have much nostalgia for the period.

I will add, however, that I was another that lived a somewhat peripatetic life as a child. I went to HS all in the same school, but before that 2-3 years per town ( or state ) was the average. So I didn’t have a childhood’s worth of local friends or nemeses to prop me up or weigh on me up either way.

73

High school was mostly bad for me. I attended a backwoods school in northeastern Pennsylvania where the rule of the day for boys was flannel shirts, hiking boots, jeans and Motley Crue. Since I liked to wear fashionable (for the 80s) clothes, listen to Bob Dylan and the English Beat and read and write, I was not too cool.

But for those of you who thought in college “I wish the HS assholes could see me now …” I have an interesting story.

After junior year in high school, I went away to a summer scholars’ program at Penn State for a couple weeks. Met a girl who thought I was pretty cool – and I thought she was way hot – and we hit it off. Spent the rest of the summer mostly on my own traveling and reading and writing and missing her, but I realized that I DID actually have something going on.

So I return to bumfuck HS for senior year and it’s like {{ping}} everyone knew I had changed. Dramatically. I guess I grew a little but I really started maturing and treating people differently. Or maybe the opposite sex can really tell when one of their own finds someone desirable.

Anyway, for senior year, I had a lot of dates, then a steady real girlfriend who lasted into college, and a lot of newfound friends.

I would not want to go back and relive high school ever. But it was waaaay fun to experience that kind of drastic change and watch other people react.

74

I can’t decide. It was good in that I had a few more friends than in middle school, and stopped being bullied overtly. It was bad in that the bullying became more subtle, mostly taking the form of practical jokes and patronizing treatment. I wanted more than anything to be popular, because the popular girls always had someone to hang out with, places to go and boyfriends. I had none of those things, and lacked social skills on top of that. I tried going out for student government (got a rather hurtful practical joke played on me for my trouble), tried out for pep squad (froze up at the tryouts and made a fool of myself), and eventually got the message from the popular crowd that, try as I might, I was not and never, ever would be one of them. I eventually gave up and joined a bunch of clubs just to have something to do, and hung out at the library whenever I had no club meetings to attend. In retrospect, it was the best thing I could have done because I ended up meeting lots of new people, attending cultural events I never would have tried otherwise, such as the ballet and Les Miserables, and having a good time after all. I did have a lot of unrequited crushes, one of which was a boy who was in 2 or 3 of the same clubs as me. He ended up going to the prom with me, but we remained just friends until graduation. I didn’t even have another date till I was 20 and in college, which was tons better than high school in my opinion.

I still haven’t decided whether to attend my 20-year reunion, but that should probably be left for another thread.

75

Aw, Skald, I don’t think anybody’s started a new thread with a quote from me before :slight_smile:

When I look back, high school was really not too bad, I had a small core group of friends (also when I look back, I kick myself for not getting to know some really neat people better, sigh, shy), I always had boyfriends and nookie. I didn’t have to put much effort out to outshine most everybody else at academics (small country school). I even had an out of town group of friends because of a church-based teen group where I was really one of the cool people

but… what Word said

I might be willing to redo high school ONCE so I could enjoy the fun parts, not be shy, stuff like that, but if I’m doomed to walk the earth forever as a vampire, I am going to, you know, walk the earth, clean up on long term investments, and not spend eternity prowling the institutional halls of lower learning.

76

High School was just miserably bad for me. It was like living in a prison yard. Intrigue, bullying, horrible crap. I quit as soon as I was legally old enough, took the GED test right after (and got high 90s% on it, w/o studying), and went to junior college. I would never go back. Fuck fuck fuck that.

77

Bah. The only thing to recommend it was that it wasn’t middle school (a.k.a. “the deepest pit of hell”).

I wasn’t bullied, or even disliked that I know of, but I didn’t have many friends either, and the ones I did have weren’t that close. The classes mostly bored me, other than some of the AP and music ones. I hated homework, so I skated by on great test scores and skipped almost all of the homework and papers. Overall, the experience felt like a tremendous waste of time. Senior year was moderately tolerable, I suppose.

Life in general at that time didn’t make up for it. No freedom really - my mom was massively overprotective (she’s mentally ill), so it took a lot of planning to get off my block. When I wasn’t working, I had no money (my parents couldn’t afford to give allowances), and when I was it didn’t add up to much. Without close friends outside of school, that left me with not much to do other than read and watch TV every night.

Of course, in retrospect, I was deeply depressed throughout most of my teenage years, which probably didn’t help. Nobody noticed at the time - it wasn’t particularly subtle, so I have no idea how they missed it.

78

Pretty good for me. I was an A student. Somewhat of a square, I guess (was an Eagle Scout) but not a geek. Good enough at sports to be on the football and soccer teams, with a little baseball thrown in. But not a “jock” (I was definitely second-string on football). We didn’t have many stoners or boozers at my school. At least I never came across any. It was a smallish evangelical private school with mostly preppie types. I only knew of 1 pregnancy in 4 years, so I guess I wasn’t the only guy not getting any.

79

Is there anyone out there who enjoyed middle/junior high/senior public school?

80

High school was pretty awesome for me. I was fat and had bad skin and hair (just like now) but I don’t remember that really being an issue. I was in band and also had a great group of non-band friends. I did well in my classes with very little effort and was well liked by all of the teachers.

I didn’t date in high school but I was never lonely. I had stuff to do on thursday, friday and saturday for band. Always something fun to do afterwards. Lots of late nights hanging out at my house playing cards or whatever (my parents are cool).

I had a job, disposable income, a driver (my brother) and eventually a car, and I listened to some great music.

Now I still am fat and have bad skin and hair, and still hang out with the same folks from high school. But I don’t get to see them 5 days a week like I used to. It’s not quite as fun.