Finally, here's something timely. If the internet lasts, this should keep up. If anything else gets struck by lightning, we're screwed :)
(Let me explain the lightning thing - we live on the top of a mountain, and things get struck by lightning all the time, and it messes with the internet more than anything. A few years ago, a man in the parking lot was struck by lightning and died. It's not some vague threat - there are big storms, and every time one comes around, someone gets struck by lightning. It's bizarre).
ANYWAYS.
Yesterday, we finally started talking about school, and had a big long presentation about class choices. It's the strangest thing, at a UWC, or any IB school, to be picking your classes for the next two years. There's a lot of thought that goes into it.
Along the lines of having a lot of thought going into an education, there's a very different mentality here than there is at high school in the States. Studying at Waterford means having a very concrete goal for almost all the students here - myself included. While we love life here, and enjoy it and all, the point of working so hard for two years is to get a scholarship (Davis Scholarship, to be specific) for university, with the dream for most people to go to school in the states. It's strange to put it like this, but this education is "the chance."
School here isn't something people HAVE to do. It's something people WANT to do, and they want to get something out of it. For instance, when we finally got to go to the library, people weren't listening to the tour. In the states, I can guarantee you my classmates would have been sleeping, but here, everyone was almost drawn to the books, and would just pick a book and start reading, like the books were some holy object that they couldn't help but open. And in a way, I guess they are, and it's really wonderful that they are.
I'm not really sure how to describe it really well, but there's just a drive that everyone has here to do really well in school. There's no competitive energy - we know that we could ALL get 45's on the IB. Everyone just wants to do really well themselves, to have a chance at something greater later in life. It's a really beautiful thing, and I'm so excited for the chance to study in this environment for the next two years.
(Let me explain the lightning thing - we live on the top of a mountain, and things get struck by lightning all the time, and it messes with the internet more than anything. A few years ago, a man in the parking lot was struck by lightning and died. It's not some vague threat - there are big storms, and every time one comes around, someone gets struck by lightning. It's bizarre).
ANYWAYS.
Yesterday, we finally started talking about school, and had a big long presentation about class choices. It's the strangest thing, at a UWC, or any IB school, to be picking your classes for the next two years. There's a lot of thought that goes into it.
Along the lines of having a lot of thought going into an education, there's a very different mentality here than there is at high school in the States. Studying at Waterford means having a very concrete goal for almost all the students here - myself included. While we love life here, and enjoy it and all, the point of working so hard for two years is to get a scholarship (Davis Scholarship, to be specific) for university, with the dream for most people to go to school in the states. It's strange to put it like this, but this education is "the chance."
School here isn't something people HAVE to do. It's something people WANT to do, and they want to get something out of it. For instance, when we finally got to go to the library, people weren't listening to the tour. In the states, I can guarantee you my classmates would have been sleeping, but here, everyone was almost drawn to the books, and would just pick a book and start reading, like the books were some holy object that they couldn't help but open. And in a way, I guess they are, and it's really wonderful that they are.
I'm not really sure how to describe it really well, but there's just a drive that everyone has here to do really well in school. There's no competitive energy - we know that we could ALL get 45's on the IB. Everyone just wants to do really well themselves, to have a chance at something greater later in life. It's a really beautiful thing, and I'm so excited for the chance to study in this environment for the next two years.
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