Easing the Back to School Jitters

It’s back-to-school season, which can be a nerve-wracking time for many of us. Students, obviously, but also parents and teachers who now have to get back into the routine of the school year once more. The old adage of the tree leaves changing colors signaling the change in our lives stays as true as ever.

This time of year can be frightening for a student, especially one transferring or advancing to a new school, no matter their age. One universally-effective solution to first-week jitters is the possibility of joining an extracurricular activity. Having to interact with new people isn’t as daunting when you’re engaging in something you actually enjoy doing, as opposed to boring old math problems or history worksheets. Conversation can come more naturally if the topic of conversation is an activity that’s actually fun and engaging, as well as different from regular schoolwork, which can be tedious and unoriginal. Shared experiences that not everyone in a  given school has a chance to be a part of (for example, a soccer game or an art show) is a good way to strengthen the bond between two people who wouldn’t think they had anything in common otherwise.

One other thing to keep in mind is that the earlier one establishes a place for themselves with an extracurricular group, the more they stand to gain from it. If someone joins a musical group in sixth grade, and continues wanting to be there until they graduate middle school, they’ll have more years to benefit from that positive space than if they had joined in eighth grade. They will get to experience more good memories than if they had signed up later since they got a foothold early on in their school career. And even when they graduate, they can join a similar club in high school since they know how they operate thanks to their experience in the previous one. It’s a real win-win.

When I graduated from middle school, I was a bit worried about fitting in because most of my friends were going to different high schools. For the first few days, I was stressing out about not being able to find people to hang out with for all of high school. Thankfully, I soon built up friendships with my peers in the cross-country team - I saw them every day, and we had been through a lot together already (we at least all had something to complain about to one another... running is hard). Thanks to the extracurricular activity I joined, I was able to establish a friend group for myself basically throughout all of high school - and make friends that I still know well to this day.