By Sam Rimland
I conducted some interviews in order to learn about the students at Irvington. I wanted to conduct a student profile that could be somewhat representative of the students at IHS.
I interviewed 5 students from each grade in order to yield more accurate results. They were asked five questions: their favorite class, their hardest class, their grade, how they felt about the workload, and their thoughts on college. The results were organized by grade in order to draw precise conclusions.
Majority of the freshman indicated that their favorite class was Science. Other responses included English, and Math. These results show how most freshman enjoy Science. When asked about their hardest class, a few responded with science or math, but most of the freshmen stated that none of their classes were particularly challenging yet. We will see if their answers change as they progress in high school. Similar to the last answer, most people said that the workload was not strenuous, while one student claimed that it was a lot of work. Lastly, all of the participants reported that they were not thinking about college at all.
Sophomores had a similar opinion about their favorite class, as Science was the favorite subject amongst 4 out of 5 of the participants. The hardest class was actually a consensus among sophomores, which may indicate the way math is taught in school, or if the interviewees just have trouble with Math. The sophomores had mixed opinions about their workload as some claimed it was easy, but others thought that the workload took spiked from last year. For their thoughts about college, many sophomores had similar answers about how they do not think about it often, but they occasionally talk to their parents about it.
The Juniors once again followed suit and their favorite subject was Science. Some claimed that math was the hardest class so far, while one thought that science was the hardest, and another had the answer of social studies as the hardest subject. Almost all of the students made it clear the workload is a different beast from last year, and that it has become significantly greater. While having to deal with this new and overwhelming workload, the Juniors also had begun to think and take steps with college. There were varying responses with some people thinking about it, a couple that have visited some already, and one that had their list planned out.
Seniors, unsurprisingly, also had a majority of people who love science. Yet again, for the most difficult class, there were varied answers. There were 2 votes for math, 2 for science, and 1 for English. The workload was bringing people to the verge of death as extremely harder classes like physics and calculus were mixed with new responsibilities such as college applications. This brings me to the next topic, thoughts on college. The interviewed seniors are knee deep in applications, and almost all of their thoughts are focused on college. Their emotions towards college were a mix of happiness and nervousness that their applications were almost done, but with that also comes the anxiety invoking anticipation of whether they will get in where they want to go.
The overall results show some common themes. As one might expect, the higher the grade the more they thought about college. This was a no-brainer as older kids in high school will be more focused and geared towards college as they need to prepare their resumes. There was a similar trend with workload that could be easily anticipated due to the general known fact that classes become increasingly difficult the more a student progresses in high school. Surprisingly, there was a constant between all grades that science was their favorite class. This could have been personal bias by the students participating in the interviews, or it supports the idea that science is the common favorite among students in the school. There was no pattern among the grades of the hardest class, which could suggest that the topics taught in certain subjects are more difficult for some grades, or that the particular participants were biased. Through this study, I was able to gain some insight into the opinions of students as well as quantify their thoughts.
