Creating Hobbies in Quarantine When You’re a Sophomore in High School

Hi and welcome to day 500 for Quarantine. How are you? You just started to get used to high school and now THIS. So fun. Sophomore year is sort of a weird year to begin with, are we right? You’re no longer a freshman, so you *get* what this is all about. But the pressure of junior year isn’t quite on. And to top it off, the end of your sophomore year is being spent in quarantine. Or while social distancing and remote learning. It’s a limbo period for our psyches and our spirits, for sure. But, it’s important to not think of this time as a limbo period for your interests, hobbies, and extracurricular pursuits. We hear you rolling your eyes. We know.

Bottom line: it’s going to take a bit more effort to actually be slightly productive during this time. But it’s important to do so because colleges are going to be wondering how, exactly, you spent this time? So here’s how we are advising our sophomores to use this time during quarantine to nurture their hobbies and extracurricular pursuits.

In all likelihood, you spent your freshman year trying a bunch of stuff out (we hope). By this we mean...attending meetings for clubs and groups you had an interest in, dipping your toe in a few different pools of interest, reading books on topics that interest you, etc.

But sophomore year is really the year to begin to hone your interests. To prune the growing plant that is your resume, if you will. And also to begin to think about testing. No, it’s not too early. So, you probably dropped a few pursuits from the agenda this past fall in favor of going deeper into fewer interests. Which is great. But how do you continue to show that you are pursuing these interests when there’s no structure? It’s not hard, but it does require a bit of organization on your end. We’ll look at a case study to illustrate what we mean.

CASE STUDY: FIONA 

Take Fiona. Fiona is a current sophomore. She’s a humanities student at her core but with an affinity and natural talent for physics. Her extracurricular list was as follows (pre-quarantine):

So, how does Fiona navigate this odd lockdown period given her interests and work depend on her being able to, well, leave the house? Here’s what we’re advising Fiona to do during this time. We’re breaking her interests down into two key categories: 

Physics and Movement

Yes, we’re combining physics and dance for this because they’re related and because it’s easier to deal with things when they’re in discrete categories. Fiona is doing the following to maintain and deepen her interests in physics, dance, and science:

  • Reading this book: Physics & Dance by Emily Coates and Sarah Demers

  • Fiona is posting YouTube tutorials on dance routines that she’s created for people who want to get moving during the quarantine. She also implements physics principles into her routines when possible to make for simple physics lessons + movement classes that can be shown to young children. She has shared these videos with her family and friends with young children at home to help with stir-craziness during quarantine!

 Creation

This category is all about Fiona’s creativity and facilitating output. So, we are having her do the following to further her talents for writing and baking:

  • She’s baking her way through Dorie Greenspan’s Baking Chez Moi, and recording notes on her recipes, including feedback from her family on how they turn out in a comprehensive spreadsheet. How many people can say they cooked their way through an entire cookbook? Next up: the Ovenly cookbook.

  • Listening to podcasts like Food52’s “Burnt Toast.”

  • Enrolled in this online course which she’s working through: The American Novel Since 1945

  • Fiona is also completing the 30 for 30 writing challenge (though we’re having Fiona respond with any length response, not just limited to poetry) where she writes one creative writing response to a prompt posted each day on this website. She’s keeping a record of it in an ongoing Google Doc that she will be able to share with schools in the future if she wants. It’s ok to not do it each and every day--stretch it out! No rush.

Then, there’s the third bucket that we mentioned earlier that we are tackling with Fiona:

Testing

While many schools are going test-optional for next year’s applicants, that does not mean that you should not begin to prepare for future standardized testing. You can be doing preparation for future testing now. We’re having Fiona take practice SAT and ACT exams and comparing her scores on them to determine which exam she should take next year.

So, the key here is splitting your interests up into 2-3 key areas and perhaps working to find where they overlap. While physics and dance might not seem like an obvious overlap to you, be creative during this time and really put some effort into reflecting on how your interests intersect and how you can investigate those intersections.

 

We’re here to help, so let us know if you need some help finding ways to deepen your interests.