First day of high school : the hallways can be relatively intimidating, with the lockers slamming, the rejoicing of friends, and even just the mere bustling of the upperclassman. The hallways for some can be a scary walk from class to class. This year’s freshmen class appears to be one of the least adaptive to the high school hallways, and it is aggravating many of the upperclassman. The Triton Voice talked to a couple of the freshmen, and doing a social experiment through the hallways as a senior, as well as getting Apphia Donoghue, a senior to give her opinion on  the class of 2021.

The social experiment, broke into 2 days was to be extremely polite to the freshmen, or anyone who was getting in the way, while classes were changing. On the next day just be completely silent, and see which way the freshmen responded quicker and more effectively to.

Friday November 17th, I passed people in the hall saying things like “excuse me” and “may I get to my locker”, in a sincere manner. Throughout the day, freshmen and underclassmen would just look at me in awe that I didn’t just push through. If I bumped into someone( which is common for me), then I actually said “sorry”, and didn’t just keep walking like nothing happened. The underclassman seemed almost perplexed that I was being that kind, and aware of my surroundings when I was changing classes.

Monday November 20, is when the second half of the experiment occurred. This time I was completely quiet when I changed classes. I didn’t say “excuse me” to get to my locker, and I didn’t apologize if I bumped into someone. This surprised me the most. The freshmen reacted in a more expected way. When I was waiting for my locker saying absolutely nothing, they noticed me after about 2 minutes and moved out of my way, saying “oh sorry”. When I bumped into an underclassman in the hall, and didn’t apologize, they said sorry to me and acknowledged that they had just as big of a part in the accidental collision as I did.

Another thing I noticed while doing this experiment is that the two staircases that are the most congested during the class changes are the one near the bridge and the one near the door that leads out to the back parking lot. In addition to this, I noticed that the bottom floor in the morning seems to be a bit more congested toward the foreign language hallway, and that is where all the big groups meet. On the upper floor, the freshmen tend to gather in smaller groups but mainly in the English or Math hallways. This essentially angers the majority of the upperclassman who come running in just as first bell rings, and just want to get to their lockers and to class before second bell. Instead they have to barge through the crowd full of freshmen.

After doing these two experiments I thought the best way to get answers was to just ask the freshmen.

“We stand in the hall because it is just what we did in 8th grade, and it is what we are used to. I am sure upperclassman find us annoying but for us talking with our friends, and staying in groups is just what we think of as normal,” said Danny Groder. Groder made it apparent that it was nothing more than a habit and a comfort thing for the freshmen. In addition I talked to freshman Kyle Odoy. “I think that we just stand that way because that is what we did in 8th grade. In 8th grade there was no one coming through the hallways, so it didn’t matter where we were standing and it didn’t matter if we gathered in groups because when we all had to be somewhere we went together.  I think as the year progresses we will stand less in groups, and become more comfortable with the high school environment” said Odoy.

Seniors seem to portray the most frustration with the issue of the freshmen clogging up the hallways. “I think it is annoying when they walk on the wrong side of the hallway, and I find it annoying when I can’t get to my locker because there is a big group of freshmen standing there,” said senior Apphia Donoghue.

Rules from Seniors:

• You should not stop out of nowhere and if you would like to talk to your friends
• You should go to the side of the hallway and not clog up the middle
• Freshmen need to understand is that when you are traveling in a hallway, it is similar to a street in the way that you should travel on the right side of the hallway.

The freshmen class this year is an interesting group of individuals that tend to be a little perplexed when upperclassman are polite. My hope is that as the underclassman mature they begin to understand the halls a bit more and focus on their manners, as well as being conscientious of other people.