I remember my first day of freshman year vividly.

My first class was World Studies and if I were to mash all my feelings into one thought, I was terrified. My hands were shaking and I was going through my list of materials repetitively, wondering if I had forgotten anything. My thoughts consisted of, “How much homework am I going to have tonight?” “When is our first test?” “Is this one of those scary teachers that everyone was talking about?”

None of my thoughts were accurate. The first thing we did was an icebreaker and the next was going over the syllabus in an engaging way. My teacher was friendly and didn’t assign any homework. My next class, biology, the same thing happened. I kept waiting for a crazy teacher to assign homework and give the date for our next test, but it never happened.

All of my fears and everything that upperclassmen warned me about was completely exaggerated. And for the first couple of weeks, the work load was light and continued to increase reasonably. Looking back on my first week, I wish I had been more relaxed and enjoyed my first week of high school, instead of stressing.

Incoming freshmen, don’t stress out and enjoy the moment because high school is not as scary as it seems.