Most people have had at least one time in their life where they fell behind. Whether it was in school or at a job or even in their personal lives, they went through the struggle of getting behind.

Falling behind is obviously something that students hope to avoid altogether. When students fall behind, it brings stress and anxiety into their lives. This can continue to trouble them as these feelings may then lead them to having even more assignments pile up. For junior Brooke Carmody, having missing assignments that affect other parts of life is something she experienced in the past. 

“It affected my grades and then my parents started getting mad at me. And that made me upset because then I couldn’t even have peace of mind at home. It just affected every aspect of my life and it was bad,” Carmody said.

For students that do extracurricular activities, staying on top of things can be extra challenging. It’s important to have a schedule and try to keep everything organized. Falling behind is often caused by procrastination, which can be hard to overcome. Carmody talks about how it can be hard to continually be on top of everything.

“It’s just when you start procrastinating, it’s really hard to stop procrastinating. And then even when you do [stop], catching up from those things that you’ve missed is super hard because it just weighs on you,” Carmody said.

Other times, falling behind can be caused by students focusing too much on social life. Having friends and a social life is good for students because having people around that they can relate to and support them is what keeps a lot of students going. The problem comes when a student strictly prioritizes their social life. It could be that they care too much about what other people think or they simply just enjoy socializing more than anything else. This is something that can affect a lot of students including sophomore Jlo Tep. Tep explains how she often prioritized her social life in the past and how it affected her school work.

“I put my social life in front of my important priorities. I was so unmotivated to do my work and study. But once my lack of work started to affect me, I took charge. Now I put my education first, because that is my main priority,” Tep said.

For freshmen, high school work can be new and more challenging than their previous schooling. It’s important for freshmen to build healthy habits when it comes to work in the beginning, so they can succeed for the rest of their high school careers and beyond. 

“My advice for freshmen that fall behind is to do your assignments the day it’s assigned, because then you don’t have to worry about it anymore. All you have to worry about is upcoming assignments that you have,” Tep said.

Students use different strategies to keep up with their work. It may seem small, but meaningful tasks such as keeping a calendar of assignment due dates or asking other classmates for help after being absent can be crucial. Freshman Izzy Dritsopoulos talks about her personal strategy.

“I make sure that I do my assignments on the due date. I use my to-do list and look through my assignments and do the one on, or closest to, the upcoming due date,” Dritsopoulos said.

“I started slow by just maintaining upcoming assignments and making sure that I wasn’t falling behind even more. And then I would do an extra assignment every day or an extra two assignments [each day] until I was all caught up and then I had nothing on my to do list,” Carmody said.

Falling behind in school doesn’t have to be the end of everything. There are always opportunities for students to catch up, like doing a few assignments each day, talking to teachers and counselors, and doing what they can to keep up with their work. Carmody gives advice to students on keeping up with work.

“I would say just build study habits early on, get good sleep, talk to your teachers, and go to office hours,” Carmody said. “Just really push through because temporary problems shouldn’t become permanent and reflect on your grades. If you just stay on top of it, it won’t become a problem.”