SOL 17- High School

          High School is something that intimidates a lot of people. As I am leaving Logan, I have had to make a lot of decisions recently about my future high school career. I don't know why, but personally I do not feel particularly intimidated by the change. I know that I will figure out my classes and fall into the new swing of things pretty quickly. My one concern is friendships. Going into a brand new environment it is really hard to guarantee whether or not you are going to have or find a lot of friends. I feel like friendships are one of the key elements to a lot of the high school memories every adult is expected to have. If you don't have a lot of friends, how else are you able to tell your kids about the time when you accidentally lit a field on fire after releasing rabid pigs into the third floor non fiction level of the central branch of a library? (Not an actual story, just an example of the kind of thing I might be telling people a long time from now about my high school antics.)
          Actually picking high schools was never one of the more challenging parts for me. I am going to a public high school, so most of the pressure was on picking a high school as opposed to getting into one. The schools I looked at were George Washington, East, South, and Littleton. They were all surprisingly different, but I did not get to shadow Littleton so I don't know what it is actually like in terms of classes and teachers and such. Now, a brief run down on these four high schools:
          George Washington High School is the first high school that I shadowed. I shadowed a friend, so this might have made me a little biased. The main perks of George is that they have an IB program, they have a large selection of classes, and they do not have a massive student body. Personally, I felt like none of the teachers really cared about the students except for one, the science teacher was the best. This was a major turn off to me because I felt like no one really cared enough to want to be there. Also, some student walked up to me as a joke, presumably after seeing my shadowing lanyard, and asked me if I wanted to join the Neo-Nazi club. My shadow and I walked away.
          South was the next school I shadowed, and my favorite out of the bunch. It had a lot of really good classes, engaging teachers, and was good at showing shadows the student body. South did a lot to make you feel like you were a part of the school, even as a shadow. The day ended with Student Senate, and the shadows had to introduce themselves after Senate had introduced themselves, and overall it was just a cool way to get a feel for the school's students. The other main pro is the size and location. It is close to my house, and it is  medium sized, meaning that you would not be drowned in people every time you go to an event.
          Next I went to the most underwhelming of them all: Littleton. Instead of having shadows, Littleton offered a tour and presentation at night. My family went to one of these. Personally, I was really impressed with how desperate they came across in the 15 minutes I heard the principal speak. I felt like they were begging us to go there in addition to saying why it was a good school. Maybe my experience would have been different if I had shadowed an actual student, but the tour and everything was just underwhelming to me.
          The last school I shadowed was East. East was the largest, and yet again I shadowed one of my friends. East has around 3,000 students, which is just way too many teenagers in one building, in my opinion. The most entertaining part of this day was seeing two girls pass notes back and forth for like 15 minutes and then the teacher taking the phone from one of them. She looked so over literally everyone and everything. Granted, they were doing a project on reasons for population decline in the mountains and she had to google pollution, so I feel like she needed that phone for more basic things than texting. East was really good overall, and the teachers and everything were about equal to South.
          At the end of the day (metaphorically, of course), I decided to go to South. It is walking distance away from my house, has really good AP, Honors, and CE classes, and overall I was just really impressed with everything. I think my parents are a little bit disappointed about the fact that neither my sister or I will ever take any IB classes, but, hey, at least I had a guaranteed spot in.