A freshman navigates their first year of high school while figuring out their study habits. A sophomore reviews for their honors chemistry unit test and their honors precalculus class. A junior balances SAT prep and hours studying for their three AP classes. A senior applies to their dream school while working on their AP Statistics homework. As the first marking period closed, students struggled with balancing the workload of tests, assignments and extracurriculars.

For the last year and a half, students have been used to four classes a day and significantly less homework. Now, with school fully back in session, students are struggling to get back on track, transitioning to seven classes a day. Junior Victoria Doti said she finds the amount of work this year much more difficult to manage compared to last year. “I was not expecting to have this much homework every night, and adding the fact that last year was online is making it even harder,” Doti said.

Students are becoming more stressed as the number of unit tests and assignments starts to rise. Finding a balance between studying and assignments can be overwhelming for students such as sophomore William Jong. “I feel like they are giving me a heavy amount of work, and it’s to the point where I cannot manage to study while not being stressed out knowing that I have more homework to do after. I’m getting about three assignments assigned each day. I usually am a person that turns in their homework on time, but lately, I’ve been bombarded with loads of work,” Jong said.

Extracurricular activities impact students, giving them less time after school to work on theirhomework. Students are involved in sports, clubs and outside activities. Doti, a two-sport athlete, struggles to find time in the day to finish homework. “I think that some teachers don’t take into account that some people have extracurriculars every day and that it gets to a point where we are too tired to do anything and might not have time for one homework,” Doti said.

Staff are also adjusting to the change from virtual to in-person instruction. Students feel that too much was pushed on them too fast by teachers. Some teachers are taking it slow, like math teacher Miim Kwak. “I think it took students a while to get used to moving from virtual to in-school and just having daily classes, meaning daily homework. I eased into it, so I’m slowly starting to increase the amount of homework,” Kwak said.

Assignments are given both online and on paper. This can make it difficult for students to beorganized with their assignments because of the different formats. “I think that some teachers are assigning lots of homework a day, and it’s getting really hard to keep up when they assign it both on paper and online,” Doti said.