“Students Speak”: Looking Back And Ahead, Pressure All Around

“Students Speak” is a regular feature of “06880.” We offer this space to Westport teenagers, to talk about anything important in their lives.

Sienna Tzou is a sophomore at Staples High School. She has lived in Westport since 2013.

She is a member of the Pre-med and Asian Students clubs, and co-president of Staples Writers’ Room. She competes regionally in bouldering and lead climbing, and has worked as a barista at Retreat Sweets and a CIT at Rock Climb Fairfield. Sienna tutors young students each week at the Westport Library. She enjoys reading, writing, and watching horror movies. Sienna writes:

It’s getting closer to the time when I have to know what I want to do with my life.

In the underappreciated years of middle school I tried much harder than any of my peers, likely even more than a handful of them combined. I outdid every part of my life that I could get my hands on.

Sienna Tzou

I participated in multiple sports, after-school clubs, and 3 early morning music ensembles. I studied SAT vocabulary daily, wrote notes of analysis on the books I read in my free time, made lists of target and safety universities I’d apply to, and loathed if even a shred of space wasn’t filled in my calendar.

I was always told that middle school didn’t matter, but I was relentless in earning straight A’s anyway. I felt the need to succeed in every subject, including the ones I struggled in. The last thing I’d want to do on a Friday evening became the only thing I did on Friday evenings.

I kept tearing away at my brittle and depleted supply of youthful vitality, rocking back and forth and rocketing off the seesaw of my emotions.

I wasn’t just bitten down; I was sawed down to the quick by everything that did not matter. The only person I was competing with was myself, but I was regrettably up against the most vile and ruthless competitor yet, no match for a middle-school kid.

Now that I look back, I don’t thank my previous self nor do any fond memories refract the occasional creep-ups of those times. If I take a look at the list of target schools I spent hours researching to devise, it would almost look like I was kidding myself.

Reality was just code for something unwarranted and extraterrestrial that existed in another dimension as a kid of 13 years.

This immense pressure has grown and developed, and thankfully subdued upon my entry to high school. It has still, nevertheless, attached the roots of its existence into my skull, thus being incurable.

Most kids from here come from parents who passed on the traits of ambition to succeed. From the looks of it, to fail would mean shaming the generations that had preceded us, breaking off the end of the chain. We simply don’t feel like we can afford being the weakest link.

Away from school: Sienna Tzou pursues one of her passions, at Rock Climb Fairfield.

This doesn’t apply for absolutely every teenager in Westport, but as soon as someone announces they’ll be taking 4 AP classes next year, a gang of teens will crowd the counselors’ suite to take 5. Most seek to be well-rounded, but does that leave any room for uniquely sharp edges?

Given that it’s the time of year for course selection, I’ve seen my peers compile AP after AP because it will “look good for resumes” or because they “can’t take fewer APs” than Academic Rival #12.

An abundantly resource-rich environment for personal growth and the cultivation of youthful learning has unfolded into a landscape of deadly competitive aptitude.

I can’t speak for everyone at Staples, but from observation from the span of my time in high school so far, taking the learning to heart without the side thought of a grade or credit is an endangered species.

From many accounts, students have locked themselves in their rooms from when they got home to after their entire family was asleep, drank multiple servings of caffeine when they felt at risk of falling asleep, and quit activities they genuinely enjoyed to pursue a grade in a class that wasn’t relevant to their interests.

What’s a grave eye opener is that up until we’ve turned 18 and rounded the corner to be sent off to face the world on our own, we are living in the smallest capsule of time in our lives.

The average person in the US lives for roughly 78 years. Sleep consumes 1/3 of their life, while 1/7 of their waking life is spent on social media. Gen Z spends increased hours on their phones, more than the average adult. Most Americans spend 60% of their lives working, the majority of them not finding joy in their role but only working the job for the sake of their paycheck.

A decade later: Where are they now?

How heavily we focus on our academics now paves the way to undergraduate university to grad school to careers to the rest of our lives. This is the age-old proverb we are spoonfed as soon as our conscious mind can comprehend this.

It’s not wrong, but our generation is accustomed to nothing else, and we therefore expect ourselves to be versions of perfection, some not even existent.

I’m at the juncture where I have to choose how I want to lead my life. I regret how extreme middle school was for me, but I know that what I’m pursuing will last me for the rest of the years I live

(“Students Speak” is open to all students who live or attend school in Westport. You can write on any topic relevant to your life. Send questions or submissions to 06880blog@gmail.com.)

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