by Kira Lu ’20, Staff Writer

Students at NA are involved in everything from arts to sports, in school and out of school, on top of having to juggle a ton of school work. So how does an NA student really spend most of his or her time? What causes all of our day-to-day stress? When I first set out to write this article, I immediately thought about homework and tests and honestly could not think of anything else. As it turns out, each of us does so much more to occupy our time and to make the school year more bearable.

To begin my investigation, I asked Veronica Zhang ‘19, the most typical Newark Academy student I know, what she spends her free time doing. At first, she responded, “Homework and sitting and contemplating life,” but then I reminded her that she also plays tennis and the saxophone, so she changed her answer to “tennis, meeting with teachers, sitting, and homework.” Among all of the extracurricular activities Veronica takes on, homework is obviously the most stressful and time-consuming one. This is likely the case for most Newark Academy students; school and grades always have a powerful effect on our mental and emotional health. After we spend seven hours in class and even more time dedicated to arts and sports, homework seems to just pile up on us.

Similarly, when I asked Sam Jackman ‘20 what he does after school, he just said “homework.” I changed the question to what he does with free time, and he still said homework! Lillian Wu ‘20 responded that she spends most of her time in the painting room, proving that Newark Academy students actually do have habits other than homework, which came as a huge surprise to me after the first two interviews and my own experience.

After a quick search on the Newark Academy website, I found that the Academy offers forty arts courses, and eighty-three percent of students participate in sports; these statistics demonstrate that Newark Academy students are both dedicated to their school work and committed  to sports and arts.

Beyond participating in sports, arts, and doing homework, Newark Academy students must also meet, and often exceed, several other requirements. For example, students must complete a minimum of ten community service hours every year. Even after completing the ten required hours, many still choose to continue volunteering out of the desire to give back to their communities. Melisa Yaman ‘19, who volunteers at the Morristown Medical Center, said, “I really like volunteering at the hospital because I like being helpful and giving back to my community in ways that make me happy.”

On top of all of that, students still find time to participate in numerous clubs, all of which are student-led and take a significant time commitment. The variety of opportunities the Academy offers, in addition to the participation of most of the student body, speaks to one of the central goals of Newark Academy, both in and out of the classroom: to go above and beyond. So, on top of doing homework, the typical Newark Academy student really spends a lot of his or her time participating in a variety of activities. The immense involvement of students in arts, sports, the school community, and the world shows the dedication of students in the school year who have to balance multiple extracurricular activities at once.