Students go through finals 8 times in their duration at high school and the time leading up to it is always the most stressful. While juniors and seniors are more comfortable with this time of the school year based on the previous years they have had with trial and error, and developing other test-taking skills incoming freshmen are not. This leads to the key question, why go into finals your freshman year blindly and unprepared when your school is filled with skilled, and experienced upperclassmen? This is where we introduce the event we held at Wilsonville High School, Sleigh your finals!
Sleigh your finals was brought to life by the Link Crew advisors, Ms. Heaton and Mrs. Zimmerman, along with the other Link Crew leaders at Wilsonville High School. Many upperclassmen from Link crew and teachers came in after school on their own time to give these freshmen a space to study in a welcoming and helpful learning environment. This study was made lighter on students’ shoulders during their time of stress and worry by making it a positive experience, Koen Vallejo, a freshman who attended the study shares, “I enjoy [being] able to eat snacks and study with my friends for finals!”
When this event was being planned, teachers and students worked hard and dedicatedly to make it worthy for freshmen to attend and gain something from it while also having fun. Ms.Heaton says, “The goal of the event was to quell any concerns about finals that 9th graders might have by providing some organization ideas, a place to work, and some’ experts'(student leaders) who could help support the prep before finals.”
While Link Crew had high hopes for this study, it did let down with the outcome it accomplished. In fact, it went above and beyond with more freshmen attending than was expected, which was a positive result of all the hard work. From prep that began before winter break even started to over 25 freshmen showing up to this study! Link Crew leader Joren Lundberg, shares why she felt drawn to wanting to offer assistance to students,” I remembered how intimidating finals were as a freshman and I was hoping to help calm their nerves and get them prepped to ace their tests!”. In all, its safe to say this event was a success and will hopefully be back to help next year’s class!