By Joey Hudson

Last school year was notably a drastic change for students and staff that hasn’t been presidented. With students being mostly online for the 2020-2021 school year, with very few actually being inside the school following the option of hybrid learning, many students worked at the comfort of their own room.

While this may have sounded like a luxury being able to work strictly at home, a lot of people took to social media such as TikTok and Twitter to voice their frustration regarding online school due to the large amount of workload compared to prior years as well as not being able to be around friends that would ease their stress. This, as well as many other factors such as older siblings having to care for their younger ones while doing school, mental health, etc., caused many people throughout the United States to wish that the next school year will go back to in-person learning.

Now that the 2021-2022 school year has been brought back to in-person learning, a poll was conducted on the @thsthepack to see whether or not students found this year to be easier compared to last year as well as their explanation as to why they chose their option.

Of the 43 students surveyed who responded to the poll, the poll was split 67% to 33%. Out of the 43 students, 29 of them said that they thought that this year was harder compared to last year. Meanwhile, 14 students disagreed, saying that they find this year so far to be easier than last year.

The people that voted that this year was easier were more vocal when expressing their reasons as to why they voted the way they did. However, rather than saying that this year is easier because they believe that the workload is a lot less, the majority of the responses from the people that chose the easier option said that this year is easier because they are around people.

Hailey Brown, who chose the easier option said, “Being around and socializing with everyone gives me the motivation to do my work.” Lauren Glazo also had a similar response, saying, “Being around people makes life easier for me.”

There are also students saying that they find this year easy because they are able to be more concentrated in a learning and working environment rather than at home. Student Rey said, “I just got distracted when we were online.” Gwenalyn Adrams also noted a similar reasoning as Rey and that she couldn’t work well during online school.

While there were quite a few people that said that last year was easier, the majority of the people that participated in the poll agreed that this year has been more challenging for them when comparing the two years. Alper Kutlug responded to the poll saying that there has been more workload this year compared to last. 

Due to people adjusting to being back to in person school after spending a year and a half doing online school, it’s understandable why the opinions of whether this new school year has been more challenging on students or not.