Highschool Musical, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and many more shows give kids an unrealistic view of what to expect for high school. Television shows have also most likely given all the freshmen what to expect about the sophomores, juniors, and seniors in their school.
Walking into somewhere new, you want to feel comfortable and be able to understand and enjoy your surroundings. Looking at a ton of television shows you would see the protagonist walking into high school and being bullied or judged by a group of people.
“Freshmen come into high school with a very movie/media like view” Elana Hartley, Junior, says. Freshmen learn the first few days that there are certain cliques around the school that slowly fade away as the years go on.
Nobody wants to be alone in high school. “Underclassmen are reaching for friendships,” Elana says. In movies, you can see how many different groups or cliques are portrayed in it. In different shows, there is always a hierarchy or a group of people that would be considered popular.
Coming into SMHS, it was nothing like how the media portrayed highschool. “As you start to transition into upperclassmen years, you start to get more comfortable with talking to people that are not considered your best friends.” Before getting the real feel about what high school is like, people think they have to stick with their group throughout high school.
The unrealistic view about what high school is can make people nervous. Many freshmen I know were scared about the first day. They thought they would know what to expect because of the media. Watching so many shows and movies nowadays really adds on to the pressure of how you should act in highschool.
People should be able to come into high school and gain new hobbies with an open mind, without any expectations of what they have to do, according to shows. For example, the right ways to act, if you should be popular, or things the shows portray as weird or incorrect.
The media is not always correct. Everybody has their own view on their experience of high school. The media’s view is not the only way people should see high school. People should see high school as a place to branch out, meet new people and try new things. It should not be a place where people are going to be afraid.