Though I am only a sophomore, I have still found things that I wish I had known as a freshman, or tips that would have made my freshman year go a lot smoother. So, for all of the freshman, here a few tips to help you start your high school experience off on a good note.

The first tip is to use this time to branch out and find what you’re interested in. Try joining clubs, sports, or engaging in new activities outside of school. You won’t have another opportunity to explore your interests like you will during freshman year.

Just because you are using freshman year to focus less on freshman year doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to get the highest grades that you can. As I said before, freshman year is one of the easiest years during high school, so you should use it to pad your GPA so that if you falter in the future, your hard work will be their to catch you.

Make sure to get enough sleep. Making sleep a habit when you’re first entering high school, can create a great routine that most high schoolers don’t have. Although it might seem fun at first to not get any sleep, it actually affects the way that you operate. The way you learn and interact with people are both ways that lack of sleep affects students. So, if you want to have productive and fun days at school, you should definitely get lots of rest.

Finally, you should try to get yourself into the high school mentality as quickly as possible. This is an area in which I struggled last year; I didn’t put in the effort in order to make a schedule and keep my priorities in order. During high school you have to focus on learning so that you understand the concepts that you are being taught. You also need to have an understanding of the topics because they are the building blocks that you continue to use throughout your high school life. I thought that I could continue the same work ethic that I had in middle school, where I could memorize all of the terms and still get an A, which ended up leaving me confused on subjects that we learned at the beginning of the year when it was time for the test.

The most important thing for you to remember is that high school is a place to learn and to find the things that you like to do. The sooner that you realize what is required of you, the more successful your high school career will be.