As the school year progresses, students across FVHS have been debating which semester is worse. While to the average individual, the change between semesters may not seem that prevalent, to students, however, the change between semesters can determine how laid-back they can be once the school day is over.
In a recent poll conducted by the Roaring Bengals, it was found that 57.1 percent of students believed that the fall semester was worse. While on the contrary, 42.9 percent believed that the spring semester was worse, with each giving various reasons as to why.
Junior Dakota Walker said, “The fall is much colder, it’s as simple as that! And for me specifically, I have a half day of art classes in my Spring semester this year, so it might be easier.”
The cold weather during the fall semester often leads to students needing to truck through the harsh cold in the mornings just to get to school, meaning that their days often start off with them shivering and desperately wanting to go back inside. If they’re lucky, the bus driver will turn on the heating in the bus.
The fall semester brings about many challenges for students. It begins directly after the summer break, causing students to feel as if their brains have been turned to mush after spending three months doing fun summer activities such as staying up late, hanging out with friends and not worrying about any upcoming assignments or tests.
In addition, the fall semester includes a higher chance of weather-related school cancellations, be it snow or ice. To the average academic student a snow day is a valuable day of rest. For AP students, the more school days they lose, the less time they have to go over vital information necessary for them to excel on the AP exams, causing them to need to cram.
Conversely, while the majority of students may agree that the fall semester is worse, that does not erase the validity of those who propose that the spring semester is worse.
Junior Logan Jenkins said, “Spring is worse because oftentimes you are already exhausted from the first semester, so starting again feels awful.”
The spring semester starts directly after finals. While to many students this is an opportunity for change, the disruption in routine can cause students to feel stressed when starting new classes. For example, if someone had a class on the first floor within the fall semester, then in the second semester has their first period on the fourth floor, that change alone can lead to exhaustion in students.
To add onto that, grades during this time tend to see a drop in comparison to the fall semester, as burnout begins to plague students and thus slow down their motivation and work effort.
In the end, both semesters present their unique challenges. The fall semester is the more difficult of the two, with the transition from summer to the harsh demands of school, leading to the dog days after that, which makes the fall semester one of the most dreadful times of the year. Fall ultimately takes the crown for the worst out of the two.
While the spring semester is not without its struggles, the mid-year burnouts and drops in motivation in work ethic show that the fall semester oftentimes is the most rigorous out of the two.
