7 Legit Life Hacks for High Schoolers
All ideas are from current and former high school students!
1. Put Ice Cream in your Hydroflask.
Bring a long spoon to school. Ice cream stays cold, you stay happy. Share it, and you'll be way more popular than the people giving out gum.
Have a real food issue where people aren’t eating? We can help with that, too.
2. Walk on water.
Ask for extra credit in a class you’re struggling with if you can walk on water… then stand on a pack of water bottles. Boom. GPA restored.
If your teacher is just a really strict grader, try asking for a favor with this script.
3. Reverse psychology your way to a better GPA
Meet Cynthia.
Cynthia has a famous turtle.
Cynthia would get a lot of concussions, and a lot of B's. End of semester, she's got a C+, almost a B. 79%.
Before the final exam, she goes up to the teacher and asks:
can you lower my grade? my parents would be really mad if I almost got a B, but they'll be less mad if it's lower
Reverse psychology. The teacher said he'd raise her grade if she made up some worksheets from class. Cynthia copy-pasted them from Google and got a B.
Be like Cynthia.
4. Normalize slippers.
Ask your teachers for permission to wear slippers. This is great for people who hate making noise when they get up from their desks. And the vibes go up.
Ask for quiet chairs that are easy to get up from, ask for open space in the back of classrooms. Make small asks for more comfy vibes until school is actually a chill place to be.
Want to change school policy and bring back nap time? Here's how!
5. Ask to take a break.
Rural Utah, school is TWO HALLWAYS.
I’m in a Science class, 10 people.
One is… making noise?
Pens capping and uncapping, backpack zipping and unzipping, new notebooks coming onto the desk and coming off, there’s a label maker in the mix… Girl has a whole assembly line going. Disruptive but okay, principal’s office is this girl’s middle name.
She does something amazing: gets up, walks to the back of the class, takes a 100 piece puzzle off a shelf, and sits down to do it COMPLETELY SILENTLY.
This is amazing. She ABANDONED the class without disrespecting the teacher or her peers. She needed a break, so she took the break. 15 minutes later, she’s back in her seat.
Get out of any class, any time you need with our 20 strategies.
6. Verbalize fear
Tell your strict teacher, "I am afraid of you bc you grade me."
Do it anonymously if it's easier. Either way, toxic vibes in class start from people not communicating. You feel like you gotta show up like yesterday didn't happen, you don't respect teachers you think do a bad job.
What if by spending two minutes fixing your relationship with your teacher, you could spend hours in class less angry/bored/frustrated.
Here's how teachers are taught to manage you, plus how to call them out without getting in trouble.
7. Get urinal dividers.
You deserve to pee in peace, and your school can definitely afford it (the average school spends $60 million a year).
These students at Saratoga High School, a public school in California, wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper. They called the article "Urinal dividers: We want more."
The pressure paid off, but there are dozens of other strategies you can try at your school, from asking local plumbers to do repairs for free in exchange for free advertising at football games to changing the culture around takin' a poo.
Get the full playbook for fixing gross school bathrooms here.
Write in with your life hacks!
Or... check out 12 more life hacks.