By Daniela Morales, 11th grade. 

When you graduate school, real life begins, and for those of us who are still on the playground, it would be useful to know if the lessons we gather will assist us on the battlefield. There’s no better source to confirm this with than graduates themselves. Lia Lockward, Sydney Joa, and Jongyeop Jeon, who agreed to collaborate in this interview, are not only at the start of their adult life but have taken on the challenge of being international students. Lia settled in London, Sydney in Canada, and Jongyeop in South Korea, each gave us their own input on how their experience at New Horizons is impacting their college life. 

When asked about what has been the greatest challenge they’ve faced studying abroad, their perspectives were different. For Lia, time management had been her biggest challenge, she said that back home she had her friends and family to support her but living abroad and trying to maintain an academic standard while working, handling chores, and taking care of herself takes time getting used to. “Especially, if you went from having food on the table every day, being driven to school, having your parents helping with the chores, siblings that were only a shout away, to being by yourself in the blink of an eye”, as Lia describes. 

Sydney on the other hand, said homesickness was it for her, nostalgia had filled her as soon as she’d boarded the plane and had stayed there in moments when she yearned for loving touches from her friends or family. “You go from seeing all of these people basically every single day of your life to having to schedule times for calls when you’re all available”, but thankfully, as Sydney let me know, it has gotten better with time. Jongyeop, finally, said that for him it was hard to make close friends and communicate in English with locals. 

Next, they were asked for any anecdotes of how something they learned at school helped them in a difficult time. Lia said that from an early age, it has been her nature to work hard as a student so it was easy for her to get good grades in middle school, but entering high school she found that her efforts were not always rewarded with equivalent grades, and the same goes for university where perfect grades are not always achievable. She said that she has learned to value her efforts regardless of her final grades, and learning from mistakes and how you react to those grades is what makes a difference. 

Sydney said that New Horizons helped her develop a work ethic because having around 8 classes and extracurriculars pushed her to find ways to make time for everything. This ethic has helped her in university, where she takes fewer classes but they have a heavy workload. Jongyeop said that academically no, what he thinks is most valuable is how dedicated you are, but he didn’t fully affirm that dedication was something he learned at school. 

After that, they were asked if studying at New Horizons had made it easier for them to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds. Lia was the only one who said yes, she explained that New Horizons helped build her tolerance and understanding towards different cultures. Sydney said that she had a lot of people from different cultures at university, and thought that interacting with them was not something that could be learned but rather something you have to experience for yourself. Jongyeop said that most people in his university are Korean, and he had no problem interacting with them. 

Another question, and perhaps one of the most important ones, was if New Horizon’s academic program had prepared them effectively for life at college. Jeongyeop said that no, and university finals were hard. However, both Lia and Sydney said that it had. Lia talked about how New Horizons had helped her develop multi-tasking skills and the ability to keep up with her university workload, she also talked about how AP classes strengthened her college application. Sydney followed this train of thought and said that APs were not only good for her applications but also helped her save time as their credits exempted her from taking five university courses. 

Finally, these students were asked what would be the thing about their time at school they would come back to if they could. Jeongyeop said that he missed Dominican food. Sydney and Lia both said that they would come back to the friendships they made in school, the closeness and familiarity school provided, and the simplicity of pre-adult life. “We spent time after class talking to each other, making memories. I miss that,” said Lia. “You’ve spent so much time with them that you don’t realize you took for granted those moments you shared. If I could go back in time, I would probably just like to be able to take classes with my friends again, just one last time” was what Sydney said.

Based on their answers to all questions, New Horizons gave them more personal lessons than academic ones, in the form of things like routines, work ethics, and friendships. Maybe graduating school is not about having in your memory facts from your hardest classes, but having memorized what you did to cope when you were struggling. 

As a junior, I felt privileged to be able to ask them these questions knowing that they graduated from the same place I will next year, and that even if life takes us to completely different places, coming from the same school gives us shared life experiences. Whether it be an academic or personal lesson, something about school always stays with you, and while you mature as a person your high school self comes back sometimes to lend you a hand.