Catie Tassinari

Catie Tassinari, a junior at La Salle, is a member of the varsity volleyball team, a member of executive council, and on top of all of that, she works at Target for 10 to 15 hours a week.

Tassinari is taking rigorous courses this year, including AP Biology, AP Calculus, AP U.S History, AP English, and Honors Spanish III. She said that her most challenging class would have to be AP Calculus “just because it takes a lot of time outside of class to understand it,” she said. 

Tassinari said that in taking these courses the homework load can be brutal, and that she spends around one to two hours on homework every day of the week. To make her homework  less daunting, she “tries to split it up during the day, so I’ll do homework in the morning, or after school, and then after volleyball,” Tassinari said. 

Although Tassinari still gets overwhelmed with her load of schoolwork, she feels it’s “been easier to manage with the block schedule days, just because I’ll have that extra day in between to get the next assignment done,” she said.

For success in school, Tassinari encourages others to keep “looking at the positive side of it,” she said. “For me, I look at it as I might not enjoy doing that schoolwork so much, but I like coming to school to see my friends. I like having classes with people to talk to, for work [and] volleyball. It’s something that I enjoy, so it doesn’t feel so much as a chore. So it’s a lot easier to manage.”

As for underclassmen, she suggests that they “definitely have an open communication with your teachers, utilize your classmates, [and] do homework together,” she said. “Going to school early to talk to your teachers if you’re struggling with something. Be willing to ask questions, because it really only benefits you and your understanding.”