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Throughout the course of everyone’s life, parents and adults have always had certain expectations that they want their children to achieve. Parents always want their children to do better and be better than they already are, which at times can be a little challenging for the average student.

When it comes to getting straight A’s in high school, parents make it seem like it’s such an easy task, but what they forget is that it’s not all just about grades. There’s friends, social life, sports, extracurriculars, family, college applications, work, along with many other things on a teenagers mind that seems to be forgotten when report cards come out.

Of course, there are some students who don’t worry much about their grades because they know they are always trying their best and living up to their own standards. Due to this, they work hard for their grades and in return they get rewarded.

Senior Spiros Markopoulos is a hard working student who is planning on going to college in the fall. On top of applying to different schools and filling out scholarship applications, he still focuses on his high school work. When he was asked whether or not he gets nervous for his parents to see his report card, he quickly responded back, “I don’t really get nervous at all because I do my best all the time and my parents know that. Through the grades I get my parents can see how hard I work for my grades. It’s definitely a good feeling knowing my hard work is paying off.”

Sophomore Madi Landry, who’s a part of the soccer team and track team for both winter and spring, and plays on an indoor soccer league during the off season, is always busy and running around. Due to this, getting her school work done correctly and on time can be difficult at times.

“My grades are really important to me, but I have so many other things going on,” says Landry. “Whenever my parents get on my back about my grades, it annoys me so much because they act like an A+ is something I can just receive without trying. I have a lot of other things going on that sometimes a bad grade just happens and I hate how much a number on aspen impacts so much of my life and determines my capability of being able to have a certain job in the future.”

There are many things today that there wasn’t when adults were younger that impact how kids are today. For example, we have phones and better technology which makes it easier to do things that adults couldn’t do when they were our ages. Because of this, students procrastinate since we know that we will be able to get the work done in a quick manner.

“My phone definitely distracts me from doing my work sometimes,” says junior Anthony Ostrander, “but on the other hand it can also be a useful tool since teachers post our homework on Google Classroom, which is something my parents don’t get. I understand why they think my phone is an issue, but it’s also helpful.”