Our journey into high school

Elizabeth Coyazo and Alyssa Ravelo • May 13, 2024

LIZ COYAZO: Hey Wizards, in today’s podcast we’ll be asking freshmen how their first year at MCHS is. We’re your narrators Liz…

ALYSSA RAVELO: And Alyssa.

COYAZO: Okay so today we’re here with…

NATHAN AMAYA: Nathan.

DONOVAN BOYD: Donovan.

TABATA CABRERA: Tabata.

ZURY RAMIREZ: Zury.

DANIELA CRUZ: And Daniela.

COYAZO: The first question is, was this school your first choice?

BOYD: No.

CABRERA: Definitely not.

RAMIREZ: It was like third.

AMAYA: I say it was like first because I didn’t know what to do.

COYAZO: How was your first year so far?

BOYD: It’s going really bad.

AMAYA: Why?

BOYD: Why?

AMAYA: Yeah, why?

BOYD: Because I’m failing.

AMAYA: That’s cool.

BOYD: That’s not cool.

AMAYA: You’re right.

CABRERA: I mean I wouldn’t say my freshman year has been going bad. I mean socially. I have many friends here that came with me from middle school.

RAMIREZ: Yeah, I have a lot of friends from middle school. It could be worse but it’s also not like exceptionally amazing

AMAYA: I mean like yeah same thing like first semester was like okay and then February sucked and March and yeah basically and my first two map tests I failed but then I got a perfect score on my first map test on the second semester which was kind of lit.

BOYD: It’s kind of lit.

AMAYA: It’s kind of.

COYAZO: What do you guys think of the first semester?

RAMIREZ: On top.

CRUZ: It was fun.

RAMIREZ: Better than second semester.

CABRERA: It was way better than how it’s going.

BOYD: It was kind of mid.

RAMIREZ: Well, I think after first semester all motivation was lost.

CRUZ: Yeah.

BOYD: After the first semester, motivation came back.

RAMIREZ: For you?

CRUZ: For you?

BOYD: I had like four Fs last year. I only have like two now.

CABRERA: That’s a good thing.

CRUZ: That’s good.

AMAYA: Character development.

RAMIREZ: I would choose like I would choose first semester again.

CRUZ: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: I wouldn’t do second semester again.

AMAYA: I think it’s all the same.

AMAYA: I also feel like like no hate to my friends, but they became less exciting after second semester, or like not to be mean but everything felt more like real first semester.

CABRERA Who are you calling out?

AMAYA: No one, yeah, one person but I won’t say their name.

COYAZO: Do you guys like the college classes? If so, why?

RAMIREZ: Oh, I liked my first college class because Mr. Orona was amazing. But after that, I haven’t liked a single college class. I hated PowerPoint and I’m failing music class.

CABRERA: I had my Jams class with Professor Rodriguez, and he was a pretty chill teacher.

AMAYA: He was the GOAT.

CABRERA: He was. Yeah, especially with him being our first professor. It was an experience. It was something that I really enjoyed.

CRUZ: He was more like laid back about like the assignments and like the due dates. He was like flexible, kind of.

CABRERA: Yeah, he was aware that we were high school students. Yeah, we were freshmen. We’re new.

AMAYA: He’s so chill too. Like he was kind of funny.

CABRERA: Like he was funny.

BOYD: I literally only did one assignment for him, and I still passed. That’s why I like that class.

AMAYA: Also, hot take. I think music class is kind of fun. Sometimes it’s boring, but sometimes it’s kind of fun. Like when the teacher gets on the little piano, it like gets me excited, you know?

CABRERA: Mhm.

BOYD: I liked all my college classes.

AMAYA: How lame.

RAMIREZ: It sucks though because our professor was on top the first semester. So then from there, we expected really good teachers, and we were sort of disappointed.

CABRERA: Yeah, that’s exactly what I think happened to us too.

RAMIREZ: It was just the class itself. Mr. Morgan was chill. Yeah, it was really fast-paced.

BOYD: PowerPoint was really cool. I liked that one.

AMAYA: Dude, PowerPoint, all we did was talk, bro.

CABRERA: PowerPoint was just assignments.

BOYD: Yeah, I didn’t pay attention to anything, and I still passed.

CABRERA: Did you do the assignments?

BOYD: No, none of it.

CABRERA: Oh, you did the final one.

BOYD: I did the final and passed that.

COYAZO: What class did you guys struggle with the most?

CABRERA: I think I struggled the most with the PowerPoint one.

CRUZ: Yeah.

CABRERA: Because it was very time-consuming completing the PowerPoint assignments.

CRUZ: Read like two chapters to just to get like a certain section.

CABRERA: Yeah.

AMAYA: Yeah, like the PowerPoint one, it was just too many assignments, and like I suck at assignments, so.

CABRERA: Oh yeah, I can relate on that completely, for sure.

AMAYA: Mhm.

RAVELO: Where do you think you would be five years from now.

CABRERA: Not here.

AMAYA: That is true.

CABRERA: I hope so, I hope so.

RAMIREZ: Optimistic, stop.

(Laughter)

CABRERA: Okay, buddy.

RAMIREZ: Optimistically at a college somewhere.

CABRERA: If we’re looking at it positively.

RAMIREZ: On a positive note.

BOYD: I want to be in bed.

AMAYA: Bed? Yeah, nice.

BOYD: I want to be like sleeping in a bed.

AMAYA: Like bedridden? You broke your neck or something?

BOYD: No, like sleeping and taking a nap and eating Cheerios.

AMAYA: So no college.

BOYD: No college.

AMAYA: I see, I see.

RAVELO: Do you wish you were able to have the high school experience? Like football games, homecoming?

BOYD: No.

CRUZ: Yeah, because I see like all my friends that they were like at Santa Ana. Like I see them posting and then they’ll be like, oh, you should come with us.

RAVELO: But it’s expensive.

CRUZ: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: I don’t know, because I like, I like there’s no, I like that there’s a really small school. But like, I feel like if we did have it, the excitement would wear down. I feel like I only want it because I don’t have it. But like, if I actually went to those schools, I wouldn’t want to go.

CABRERA: Yeah, I agree. I understand what you mean.

RAMIREZ: Because I’ve gone to football games for other schools and they’re okay.

CABRERA: But it’s more like the fact that they’re not theirs. They’re not ours.

RAMIREZ: Yeah. I think we like the fact that it’s not our school.

CABRERA: We get invited.

RAMIREZ: Yeah, I think, I think I enjoyed going because I was invited by my friends.

CABRERA: Because if we had them, if we had them, they’d get normalized, you know?

RAMIREZ: Yeah.

AMAYA: Doing like all that social stuff. It’s just yuck.

CABRERA & CRUZ: Yuck?

AMAYA: Yeah, that’s all I can add.

RAVELO: Hey, with the knowledge you have now, if you could go back, would you still go to this

school if you had a choice?

RAMIREZ: With what? Oh, the knowledge. Sorry.

BOYD: No.

CABRERA: Why not?

BOYD: This school’s kind of.

RAMIREZ: I think I would.

CABRERA: Why do you say that Donovan?

BOYD: Cause, I can’t get the work done. And I’m really bad at it.

AMAYA: Honestly, I think I would, because if it wasn’t for the school, I would have never met Oscar Hernandez, which is the love of my life, well, I wish. But yeah, because I, I mean, like, like being honest in Sega, like all those other schools, I got opps there– people I just don’t want to see. So like going here, no one else I only know like three kids from middle school that went here. So like, that’s kind of cool because I kind of don’t like the kids at my middle school. Like no, no hate, but it’s just they’re kind of meh, you know? But just like right here, it’s like meeting everyone new. It’s kind of like you’re starting new kind of sort of thing.

RAVELO: I feel like in Sega, Santa Ana and all of that are too big for me.

CRUZ, RAMIREZ, and CABRERA: Yeah.

AVELO: I would get lost.

RAMIREZ: I think not even that, but I think it’s a lot less anxiety-inducing to go to a school with little people, because I don’t feel as anxious to like socialize. And I think if I went to a big school, I’d be quiet.

RAVELO: But like with smaller schools, like our school, I think I’m more conscious of how I act.

RAMIREZ: Yeah.

RAVELO: Because I’m scared that like, oh, if they see me acting like this, they’re gonna know me for that.

CRUZ: There’s not so many of us and then like at Santa Ana. I was an Ana kid, because I went to like all of the kids that I went to like elementary school, like I grew up with. I don’t have to see them now that we’re older. And it’s just kind of like, we used to be friends, but we’re not friends anymore. And it’s weird. And then I come in here, like Nathan said, it’s a fresh start. Like I don’t probably know like 10 kids, like from middle school. It kind of feels like we’re more of a closer community.

AMAYA: AVID family?

CRUZ: Yeah, we’re kind of closer. And it makes it feel kind of fun. Yeah, I don’t know how to explain it.

RAMIREZ: Plus, I feel like I would because like, I know that if I didn’t do well in a class, like that was completely my fault. Because it wasn’t that like, they didn’t do a good job of teaching. I know that was up to me. So like, I know that they have good teachers.

CABRERA: I’d say like, if like if someone offered me the opportunity, like to leave the school, I wouldn’t, I don’t know. Because it’s like, it’s different from like knowledge and experiences. Because with my experiences, like, I don’t really I don’t regret or I don’t want to redo. I wouldn’t say I would redo anything. Because, you know, that’s just how stuff works. It happens and it happens. But I mean, they’re like, I would, because I feel like I didn’t really have a sense of choice as to whether I wanted to come here or not, which is something that like, I wish I could have had a choice on. But either way, I wouldn’t say I like, I don’t hate it here. So yeah.

RAVELO: And what advice would you give to the incoming freshmen?

CRUZ: Don’t procrastinate. Like people told me that, like my sophomore friends, like don’t procrastinate and I ignored them and like the assignments snowball so fast. It’s not funny. Like, I won’t do my homework for a week, and the next thing I know, I have like 30 assignments and like two tests.

RAVELO: Especially in bio.

CRUZ: Yes.

RAMIREZ: I was going to say, do you work for bio.

CABRERA: I think don’t even, I’m still, I’m still, I’m not on the reflection yet. I’m still in the procrastinating stage.

AMAYA: Me too.

RAMIREZ: Yeah.

CABRERA: I’m still procrastinating. But once I realized what I’m doing.

CRUZ: I learned what classes I can procrastinate in and which ones I can’t. That’s what I learned. I don’t know if that’s a good skill to know, but like, I know when I can procrastinate, like when I need to like, actually get my stuff done.

RAMIREZ: Don’t be extroverted, it’s like, you don’t have much to lose here. Like, yeah, no one can really judge you. It’s a very small school. Plus, not gonna lie. If you come here, you’re automatically like not cool. Sorry, like.

CRUZ: Yeah.

CABRERA: Like might as well cause.

RAMIREZ: Because you don’t have cool status if you’re coming to this school.

CRUZ: It’s like for smart kids.

RAMIREZ: For smart kids so I think it’s just like, I don’t know.

AMAYA: I don’t think we’re smart.

CABRERA: I’d never heard of this school.

CRUZ: Oh yeah, I had no clue.

CABRERA: So honestly, this school, I’d never heard of it until like I was quote unquote invited or whatever.

CRUZ: Yeah.

CABRERA: The teachers put us aside and said that this school, whatever. Like it was, it was put up, it was put like on a pedestal or something. It was, to me, the way it was shown, it was like, perceived as like more opportunity and better. So that’s how I perceived it as. And I think me having that interpretation of the school kind of like, gave me a way on how to think of it.

RAMIREZ: Also do your extracurricular hours, bro.

CABRERA: Do your community service.

BOYD: I have zero hours right now.

RAMIREZ: Exactly, see.

AMAYA: Really?

BOYD: For both semesters.

RAMIREZ: I have some, but it’s not all. So do your hours, guys.

CRUZ: Don’t procrastinate anything. Like community service, like don’t procrastinate that because then you’re stuck.

BOYD: That’s some good advice. I should follow it.

RAVELO: I learned here is that I can’t do what I did in 8th grade, which was just pray that I get an A on my test because I usually do. But here, I actually have to study and I have to study good.

CRUZ: Yeah.

AMAYA: Because like in eighth grade, I don’t think I’ve ever failed a test. But like my first test here, I didn’t study. And like, F, like bro.

RAMIREZ: I think you don’t expect it to get hard. You expect to keep doing what you’ve been doing your entire life. So it’s not like that anymore.

RAVELO: My eighth grade math teacher was too easy on us, to be honest.

RAMIREZ: Oh I failed those too.

CABRERA: Yeah, me too.

RAVELO: Oh, you guys have a extra, like you can retake it as much as you want and I’ll keep the highest score. But I never failed any of those. But there were some tests that were just one question and most of the tests were team.

CABRERA: Oh, I don’t know. I would usually I wouldn’t say I’m working any different. I still fail my tests. I failed my eighth grade test. I failed a lot of eighth grade tests. But the fact that like, as I’ve mentioned, that I don’t know, it’s deemed like here it’s deemed as more, not more to lose, but like there’s more value in stuff, which makes it feel like it’s more important.

CRUZ: There isn’t a lot of us in certain classes, like classes are small, so it’s easier to ask for help and less, oh, I have to like go hunt this teacher down.

AMAYA: Also, one thing, Mr. Kaneko at the start, he might be seem a little scary, but he’s not. He’s not that scary.

RAMIREZ: He seems so nice, I say hi to him.

BOYD: Yeah, he’s cool.

AMAYA: Really? Like at the start of the class, he’s kind of scary, but he’s not. He’s just like really nice sometimes.

RAMIREZ: Mr. Camacho’s a little, but in the beginning.

CRUZ: In the beginning.

RAMIREZ: In the beginning, he’s actually a softie.

CRUZ: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: He’s a softie guys.

CRUZ: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: He’s actually a softie guys.

CRUZ: We love Camacho.