From seasonal depressions to periods of academic stress, we often find ourselves looking forward to, or perhaps loathing, the next quarter of school. The question remains: Which quarters are the best, and which quarters need to be faced with caution? Here, I’ll be ranking the quarters of the school year at BVN from worst to best based on what happens during them, the workload, along with various other factors.
Firstly, at last place is the third quarter. This quarter has almost nothing good going for it. You’re coming off of a long and (hopefully) joyous winter break with the holidays; however, once the third quarter hits, the holidays are over and yet the weather remains. The cold and gloomy conditions don’t contribute well towards happiness and neither does the work.
The workload here is one of the highest with absolutely nothing standing to gain. The light at the end of the tunnel, being the end of the school year, is months away.
This quarter does still have some to gain, however. There’s plenty of mustang basketball to watch, and the sweetheart dance occurs during this quarter as well. As cool as those are, they just don’t contribute enough to redeem the third quarter from the last-place spot.
Coming in at 3rd place is the second quarter. Some might think this is controversial due to its many good attributes, but they don’t make up enough to put this quarter any higher. There isn’t really a “fall break” here at North outside of a slightly longer weekend, meaning that as the hype from the school year starts to fade away, there isn’t much time to mentally prepare oneself for more work.
On top of this, don’t expect good weather from fall to last, as winter begins to arrive. With November and December, the football season is over and the cold takes its place, along with daylight savings hitting like a rock onto everyone’s sleep schedules.
One could argue that the magic of the holiday season carries this time of year, but it’s not enough to break the shadow of semester one finals rolling in and the stress of your GPA reflecting your make-or-break final grades.
Overall, although the second quarter does have redeeming qualities and may not be so bad overall, especially when put next to the third quarter, it doesn’t have enough to enter the top half of this ranking.
This is where the list might start to get controversial. The debate over whether the first or fourth quarter is better.
Coming in at 2nd place is the first quarter. This is an overall positive quarter, as it really doesn’t have much wrong with it. The excitement from the beginning of the school year is there, along with the beginning of football season.
Homecoming takes place during this quarter and classes aren’t stressful at all with no finals for months to come. If you take a step back, however, you’ve still got three more quarters ahead of you.
Come the end of homecoming, the realization sets in that roughly 7 months remain before the summer returns, and that dampens this quarter too much for it to be ranked first.
Lastly, in 1st place is the fourth quarter. The academic jail students are put through during the 3rd quarter begins to ease. Coming out of spring break refreshes students to power through and get the school year done. Between the end of spring break and summer, there’s really only about 1.5 months of locking in that need to occur. Along with this, the spring and early summer weather is almost perfect. Although the spring sports don’t carry as much popularity and hype, they are there in addition to Prom for those upperclassmen and plenty of activities for seniors who are gearing up for graduation.
AP testing and finals can’t be ignored, but the fact that they are at the end of the year helps most get through them and finish the year strong, making this quarter the best of all.
Overall, a poll conducted on the BVN News instagram account agrees with this ranking. 49% of responses had the fourth quarter as their favorite, with the first quarter behind at 31%. A collective 20% said that the second or third quarter was the best…
With that said, good luck with the fourth and the best quarter of the 25-26 school year, Mustangs. Best wishes for your final grades and AP scores!
