In Spring 2020, the Fund asked City Schools students, teachers, and principals to share their experience of the shift to remote learning at the onset of the pandemic. A year later, the Fund has followed up with the same individuals for their perspective on what the 2020-2021 school year has been like. In our first blog post of this series, Kyia Williamson, a Ben Franklin High School Senior, reflects on her final school year and the challenges of maintaining work-life balance. You can read her essay from May 2020 here.
Within the last nine months, things have been pretty hectic for me. As I am a senior about to graduate in a month, transitioning into a university this fall. As I have gotten deeper into the college process it has become quite overwhelming. From narrowing down colleges to receiving financial aid packages, staying up-to-date with college emails, and tons of other things. As a senior, I have to finish off strong! Continuing to stay up-to-date with my classes is a must for me. There have been times I have taken long breaks from classwork due to stress and the workload would increase. The majority of the time I don’t take mental breaks so I’m more prone to mental burnout.
I have been told multiple times that I need to take breaks because I am so stressed out trying to pass my classes. I push through the exhaustion because I just don’t like knowing I have assignments that need to be done and I’m not doing them. Education is very important to me and I know that colleges look at grades to determine certain things like if you are eligible for honors housing. Plus, I know that hard work pays off in the end.
Another situation I’ve been dealing with during the past nine months is whether I really wanted to do track and field this year. I love running, I did indoor track when I was a junior. I even raced people back in middle school just for fun. I was looking forward to outdoor track this year then that privilege got taken away from me as Fall sports were canceled due to COVID. With Spring sports starting back up, I had the opportunity to do outdoor track like I wanted. However, I was too indecisive as I was trying to fit a lot of things in my schedule like driving school and working.
Unfortunately, I had to make a sacrifice from the list of the things that I wanted to do in order to fit my schedule. So I made the choice not to do track and field this year for my last year of high school. But I’m comforted by the fact that I will once I get into college. I will run for the university- where I have also decided to major in psychology and minor in theology.