From the first remote Monday to now, students have experienced five changes in schedule, making this school year chaotic, menacing, and a memory to look back on. 

Even though it may have been comforting to students who went to Grandview before COVID-19, the question remains: what was it like from a freshman’s perspective?

Imagine having your first day of high school online, on a computer, and at your home. Seems a little sad, right? 

Well, that’s how freshmen year has felt, coming from personal experience. For most freshmen, the idea of a new, fresh start was abolished. 

Instead, the world of complete unknown and multiple confusing schedule changes were introduced to us.

During this year, I, as a freshman, have truly felt that I have missed out on an entire fourth of my high school career. I still don’t know the building as well as I should. 

Heck, just last week, I had to ask where the nurses office was because I was still so unsure about the rooms and hallways here. 

Along with not coming to school seventy five percent of the time, I feel like my roots as a freshman have not been properly placed yet. I don’t have a solid foundation here, with friends and a good, stable schedule. 

It’s been almost an entire school year, with only one and a half months to go, and it feels like school has just been like almost a part time job. Staying at home three days a week, not going to school most of the time, and really having the person that I talk to the most be my mom. 

I haven’t experienced a school dance since the seventh grade and missed homecoming because the standards ‘have to be met at all times.’ It’s not just school being taken away from us, it’s our teenage-hood being ripped to shreds. 

As a whole, I have gotten much less of the workload that is usually given to students. We don’t have to take time out of our day and go to freshman seminars, because the restrictions don’t allow hundreds of students in an auditorium. 

We also don’t have to worry about upperclassmen ‘picking’ on us, because we never see them. 

With being a freshman, we haven’t actually gone to school since March and have also switched to an entire different school. 

Well, now we’re finally going full in person, and I honestly feel like I’m just now starting school. 

Obviously, it won’t be the same because of the masks, but finally, I feel like I can call Grandview my school.