Let’s be real — school can be really, really tough.

For many students, it’s not about the thrill of learning new things; it’s about getting through the day. From the first bell to the final dismissal, most of us just want to make it without too much stress.

Whether it’s because of homework, tests or simply the pressure of keeping up with everything, school can start to feel more like a source of stress than a place for growth. 

Part of this negative outlook comes from the way school is structured. 

There’s often a lot of focus on grades, exams and meeting expectations. It’s easy to get caught up in the race to be the best or to just survive the workload, and this can make it difficult to have a positive outlook about school. 

After all, when school feels like a series of hurdles to overcome instead of an opportunity to learn and grow, it’s no wonder that many students aren’t exactly looking forward to it. Rather than waking up and looking forward to going to school, the average student is just trying to make it to the weekend.

Navigating this issue demands a deeper look at what factors contribute to student enjoyment (or lack of it) at school.

For starters, one of the biggest influences on a student’s attitude is the relationship they have with their teachers. 

A good teacher can inspire, motivate and make even the most difficult or boring subjects more engaging. On the other hand, an unapproachable or disengaged teacher can leave students feeling disconnected and unenthusiastic. 

We’ve all been students at some point in our lives. I’m sure you could easily tell whether a teacher of yours was passionate about the subject and loved their job. 

If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to fall into a class where the teacher obviously enjoyed their work, then you’ll understand what I mean. The air of passion they carry themselves with is often contagious enough to pique your own interest.

Obviously, another significant factor is the material itself.

We all have different preferences and topics we feel naturally drawn to. Personally, I rarely want anything to do with the sciences and much prefer the humanities. If math classes were made illegal for some reason, I wouldn’t exactly be devastated.

If a student isn’t genuinely interested in what they’re learning, it’s easy for school to feel like a drag. The presence or absence of intrinsic interest can make the difference between just going through the motions and truly connecting with the material.

The unfortunate drawback of an educational system designed to provide students with a well-rounded education is that students will rarely find every subject fascinating.

Unsatisfactory performance tends to follow a lack of interest, and the sight of poor test scores can discourage students even more.

Luckily, not all hope is lost. There are things every student can do to improve their school experience. It all starts with shifting the one thing you can control — your mindset.

Perspective drives performance. This extends to every aspect of life, and most certainly applies to school. As unhelpful and generic as such advice may seem, you have to find the silver lining.

Let’s stay on the topic of bland, uninteresting coursework. 

In an ideal world, your schedule consists only of classes that you’re truly passionate about. You constantly learn fascinating things that only further your love for the subject, and walk into every class eager and enthusiastic.

In reality, that likely isn’t the case. You can blame it on restrictive A-G requirements or a course catalog that leaves much to be desired, but it won’t change the fact that you’ll probably end up with a handful of classes you honestly don’t care for.

However, that’s exactly why doing the best with what you’ve got is so critical.

That’s the title of a psychological study which found that our expectations often determine the unfolding reality we experience. 

It only takes a moment’s reflection to realize that this rings true for all of us. 

When we grow accustomed to perceiving a class as boring, we solidify our expectations that it’ll be boring the next day as well. At that point, we’ve already diminished any chance that we may have had of enjoying that lesson.

Here’s a famous quote attributed to Henry Ford — 

Ford’s words, since the time they were initially spoken, have not lost any relevance.

For a long time, it’s been understood that our attitudes and self-beliefs are capable of creating self-fulfilling prophecies, where our expectations influence our behavior in a way that makes our expectations come true.

Once again, this applies to school the same way it applies to every other aspect of life.

I’ve mentioned this topic, the importance of mindset in determining our enjoyment of a class, with several of my friends.

One of them, skeptical, said the following: “I don’t like history. I’ve never liked history. I won’t ever like history.”

That friend was absolutely right, but precisely due to their mindset. Of course they won’t ever like history. How could they, when they had already ruled out the possibility of enjoyment?

Any chance they have of genuinely enjoying history, however small, is squashed under that kind of mindset. (Generally speaking, of course. I’m not accounting for the off chance that a random lesson in a class you tend to dislike turns out to be interesting. Those are anomalies; even I found biology and chemistry intriguing a few times.) 

Even if that chance was initially 10%, 5% or even 1%, believing it to be 0% manifests it into reality.

But I’ll bet every single person reading this article is guilty of following that same train of thought at least a few times. In fact, most of us students probably do so on a daily basis, for several of our classes.

I can’t stress this enough — no matter what methods you try to use to make a class more interesting, it will fail unless you first open yourself up to the possibility that it can be. 

It’s a requirement; any chance you have of turning your attitude around is stuck firmly behind that first mental block.

Another thing we can do to increase our enjoyment at school is to recognize the value in whatever you’re learning.

I’m reminded of a quote by Maya Angelou that Mr. Jacob Ferrin shared with my AP United States History class. 

The quote touches on the fact that like money, knowledge can be ‘spent’ in various situations throughout our lives. Essentially, there are very few bits of knowledge that are entirely worthless.

Of course, this may not seem applicable at times. Knowing the ins and outs of the periodic table, at any stage in life, is largely unnecessary for most people. 

When I struggle to grasp a Calculus concept, as I very often do, it’s very natural for me to grumble internally that I’ll never find a use for deriving integrals in my lifetime. 

I certainly don’t jump straight to thinking, “You know what, this could be a really valuable thing to understand. I better give this my best shot.” Not at all. I’m not going to tell you to treat every single class like it’s the coolest, most valuable thing ever.

So here’s what it really boils down to — you should make a conscious effort to better enjoy school because you have nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain.

Give it a shot and try to actively shift your mindset. In the end, it might not change anything. You might still hate the classes you hate.

But even if nothing ends up changing… Well, that’s just it. Nothing really changed, and you’re not worse off because of it.

And if it does work out? 

You might find yourself better enjoying your time at school. To me, that alone makes it worthwhile to try. And if you do end up liking your classes more, then odds are your academic performance will also improve. It certainly won’t get worse.

Those are two huge incentives to give it a shot. Keep in mind that the time will pass anyway. That being the case, you might as well spend it trying to have the best time you can.

Quick disclaimer — shifting your mindset and attitude obviously isn’t easy or simple. 

If it was, then I, the one preaching this to you, would be a school fanatic. I’m not. I love my weekends and dread Mondays. I still prefer the humanities and would rather not touch anything related to STEM.

Nevertheless, making efforts to turn my mindset around in the last several months has since made my school experience much more enjoyable. I say this as a former world-class, professional school-hater.

I know that school can suck, and I’m here to say that it doesn’t have to. At least not as much. You are capable of transforming the way you experience your education.

If we’d just open ourselves up to the idea that school can be more than a source of stress, we might just find that it contains a lot more excitement than we thought possible. 

Hunt for every last reason to enjoy yourself and make an effort to squeeze maximal joy out of the process. It’ll be worth your while.