January comes with many holidays to start with, but the three snow days and a two hour delay are really adding up to the stress put on students who are worrying about their grades for this quarter.

Freshman Aidan Lansburgh missed an entire week for a family trip–all of the assignments due this Thursday, he had to turn in last Friday, almost a week early.

“I stayed up until 1:00 a.m. last Thursday finishing everything,” Lansburgh said. “It sucked.”

Lansburgh came into the quarter thinking it would be easy.

“This quarter has been hard, and I need to do a better job of keeping up with my work,” he said. “Keeping up with my day-to-day work was my biggest problem this quarter.”

Charlotte Krell had a lot to say about how the snow days impacted her workload.

“Having the snow days was bittersweet,” the sophomore said. “I enjoyed having time off, but at the same time, I lost a lot of opportunities to stay after school and work with teachers and get my grades up. Also, all my teachers are cramming in all of the classwork, and all the work is just piling up and there isn’t enough time to get it all done.”

Krell had an idea that would have benefited students who were having trouble toward the end of this quarter.  

“I really did appreciate the snow days, but I wish they would make the quarter one week longer so everyone can get all their assignments together and end on a good note.”

For freshman Sabrina Sanchez, this was one of the first times this year she was truly stressed.

“I didn’t have amazing grades, and I’m trying to get all A’s,” Sabrina said.  “It’s very difficult because teachers gave us projects after the snow days and don’t post all the information on blackboard, but they still hold us to the original due date. I wish they would understand that it’s not easy to get good grades and bring them up when you have extracurricular activities and snow days. It’s tough when you can’t connect with your teacher when you’d like to.”

Most students agree that everything is getting squeezed in the last week and it’s hard to finish it all on time.

“I am pretty stressed about my grades, and I’m planning on finishing the quarter by doing any extra work I can to get my grades up,” sophomore Nicole Booth said about her plans to end the semester on a high note.

Battling with adversity, West Potomac students are still trying their best to go above and beyond.