By Nongnaphat (Pear) Rawara and Tanisha (Nisha) Sukheepod
The Union Newspaper Club congratulates all high school students for completing their winter exams, especially the freshmen with their first exam season whom we will get to know in this first edition. We sent out a google form for all the freshmen class of 2024 to fill out with questions inquiring about themselves. We received responses from 44 freshmen in total, 31 girls, 12 boys, and 1 who preferred not to say.
Individually, 43.2% of the respondents are the youngest in their families, 25% of them are the oldest, and 15.9% of them are the middle child or are an only child. This year, we have a lot of athletes. Out of all the 44 freshmen, 30 (68.2%) of them play a sport, 14 (31.8%) do not. Additionally, we also have musicians in the class of 2024. Exactly 26 (59.1%) play an instrument, and 18 (40.9%) do not. We have a lot of students who do activities after school and some outside of school as well. Next, we asked them about how long they’ve been at RIS. Surprisingly, 15 (34.9%) of the freshmen have been at RIS between 4-6 years. On the contrary, 14 (32.6%) have been at RIS between 1-3 years. Lastly, 14 (32.6%) have been at RIS for 7+ years. Most of the freshmen have been at RIS for a while, there are only a couple of new students this year. We asked if their families own companies. We found out that the majority, 23 (52.3%) of the respondents did, and the rest didn’t or preferred not to say. In the next section of the survey, we asked them about the amount of time spent each week studying. In middle school, 45.2% of our freshmen spent around 10 or less hours per week studying, and 54.8% of them spent more than 10 hours per week. Now, the anticipated amount of studying per week in high school for 44.2% of the freshmen is 20 hours or more per week, while the rest (55.8%) anticipate studying for 11 hours or less. After seeing their studying hours, we asked about their high school priorities. Up to 90% of the respondents put studying/grades as their top priority, showing that they care about education, more than their social life which 55.8% put as their third priority. An interesting observation we made from the survey was that 14% of students put “paid employment” as their fourth priority, this could potentially be a connection to the question about whether their family owns a company or not.
Next up is the most dreaded topic of all: academics. Let’s see how our fellow freshmen are doing in terms of formal studies. In total, 47.7% are in regular math classes while 45.5% are in accelerated classes, meaning only 6.8% are in paced math. Looks like our freshmen are on track with math this year showing us that math is definitely running deep in their genes. Watch out seniors, they might be coming for you guys at the Knowledge Bowl! As for sources of pressure, most freshmen experience pressure from either their own expectations (63.6%) or their own families (54.5%). Meanwhile, 36.4% experience pressure from their peers, and an astonishing 29.5% experience it from surprisingly their very own teachers. Just a little reminder that mental health is just as important as physical health so anytime you feel too overwhelmed, don’t forget to take a little break for yourself and remember that it’s okay to make mistakes and have bad days. 56.8% of the respondents take tutoring for math followed by 34.1% of students that don’t take tutoring at all, leaving a variety of scattered percentages for other students who take tutoring for english, science, SAT, and other languages. The data also shows that most freshmen receive tutoring either at home or not at all while a few other freshmen travel to popular places such as Siam and Chamchuri. Last but not least comes one of the most important topics booming in our generation: technology. From data collected for computer types, 81.1% of freshmen use Mac, 11.4% use PC and 6.8% use other types. Every freshman has a cellphone with 36.4% being android users while 63.6% use iphones. Instagram seems to be the most popular application that most freshmen use the most followed by Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitter, and finally Photomath.
Demographics
Middle-High School
Academics
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Technology
Overall, we hope this data helped improve your understanding of our freshmen this year a bit more as we approach the end of 2020.
