As the new school year begins, students from freshman to junior year may need guidance on choosing how to spend their time academically with classes or socially finding new friends or a group that is accepting on campus. Seniors who have gone through these exact experiences agreed to offer advice to make an underclassmen’s year easier.

Freshman year is often the year that students push aside, not so much worried about what class or sports they should focus on. But as students slowly start to settle in their later years, they start to wonder what courses can be intriguing to them not only academically, but athletically and artistically. Finding communities within clubs that share their common interests, joining sports that build team bonding skills, and talking to counselors about enrolling into the right level of classes can all be difficult to navigate.

Senior Ameer Jaber is Treasurer of Link Crew, a leadership program for sophomores and higher that mentors incoming students to get used to the school. He is also part of Bulldogs News Network (BNN), West Covina High School’s student news broadcast. 

Jaber is involved in several clubs. He is the Vice President of Red Cross Club, which gives students the chance to volunteer at blood drives and donate blood; President of Thrift Club, which helps students find unique clothes while supporting sustainability; and the President of Calligraphy Club, a club focusing on the art of handwritten lettering and creating poster requests for school events such as prom or homecoming. 

For freshmen, it may be especially difficult to figure out what is best suited to their future and their connections. Jaber suggests underclassmen manage their time and know their limits when it comes to Advanced Placement (AP) classes.. It is intimidating to start searching for the right class that they can manage for a whole school year.

“Join a leadership class. You’ll meet so many new people. You’ll learn new skills, you’ll have fun, and you’ll have a family-like bond,” Jaber said.

Cora Peterson,  a senior who has been in choir for all four years. She started in the non-audition ensemble, a choir performance group that allows any student in any skill level of choir to sing, now in the highest ensemble group, Westcovaires, which requires an audition and offers a more hands-on experience. Peterson believes that when starting high school, students tend to feel pressured to fit into a new social setting that ends up pressuring students to fit under one label. This pressure can lead students into situations that may cause them to lose their confidence or passion in the things they love.

Being in Westcovaires, it gave Peterson the opportunity to travel to different states, take tours, and group bonding trips with her class. 

“It starts with being comfortable with yourself. If you’re not comfortable with yourself, it doesn’t really matter who you’re around,  just being comfortable with yourself and learning to be okay with your weirdness, quirks, imperfections, and all of those things. And then once you find that love in yourself, people will be drawn to that,” Peterson said.

Sticking to a class builds experience as well as settling into a friend group that may get others out of their shell. Senior Zhigang Liu, has stuck with dance throughout his high school years, which pushed him out of his comfort zone and led him to become more involved in the dance program, DubC, something he would have never thought he would be a part of.

With little guidance in a new setting, some students may find it difficult to express themselves or decide what path they want to pursue. Figuring out how to manage time and balance it between all 6 classes is difficult. Dealing with the stress while trying to figure out a new rhythm in a new class setting.

“I probably would have wished that someone, like, really told me I should follow a pathway that I would like, would want to pursue,” Liu said.

With their years of experience from the seniors, they share the same message throughout. Not to hold back, enjoy the events campus provides for its students and to gain the confidence to have fun and to step out of their shell, not worrying about being odd.