This article was written by Riley Snyder.
It’s the first day at a new school double the size of your old one. You have no clue where to go or how to get to your classes. It’s scary. Your palms sweat, your knees are weak, your heart rate raises.
It’s daunting trying to make new friends in a different school. There are brand-new teachers, it’s an unfamiliar town and there will be many foreign experiences. Despite the scariness that comes with change, it can be for the better. Sometimes, you have to take risks and step out of your comfort zone to grow as a person. Switching schools pushes people to take on new risks and challenges.
I have seen first hand how change can be a beneficial thing. At my old school, Lake City High School, I wasn’t involved in anything. Feeling out of place and living day by day isn’t ideal for a teenager who should be out with their friends making memories. Every single day was a bad one. Feeling alone, like nobody was there for me. It’s scary, feeling as if there’s no one you can talk to and nobody is by your side.
Upon transferring to Northview, everything was different. The urge to be involved, unlike my old school, felt very welcoming. Immediately upon walking through those doors terror struck, not knowing anyone or anything about the school. It was toward the end of fifth hour and this girl who wasn’t known to me walked up and asked if I wanted to be her friend. “Of course” I said and to this day we are still friends and I will forever be grateful for her. Northview creates brave students and because of this I finally found my family and discovered where I felt most at home.
Along with a more welcoming environment, I also was able to join various extracurricular activities like Dance Team, Welcoming Accepting Valuing Everyone (WAVE) and Green Team. Joining these clubs no doubt helped me step out of my comfort zone.
Being involved in extracurricular activities has always been my dream. Dancing around my house looking crazy is one of the many activities that are enjoyable to me. As soon as one of my friends told me that the dance team needed more people. joining seemed like the perfect opportunity, but the same voices in my head from before switching schools were repeatedly saying that wouldn’t be good enough, so I jumped out there and took that risk. Now being on the dance team is all I could ever imagine.
The school I previously came from didn’t have any clubs so once the posters went up for Welcoming Accepting Valuing Everyone (WAVE), I immediately joined. Being able to participate in the school was important to me. WAVE seemed like an amazing opportunity to take part in another club and be more involved in the school. It’s really enjoyable on Wildcat Kindness Day when we can bring smiles to everyone’s faces by giving all of the students candy and a nice greeting.
It’s always been a life goal of mine to use the best of my abilities to help better the environment. Being able to take part of the green team gives me the opportunity to help the earth as well as being a part of a team that wants the world to be a better place. Participating in Adopt-A-Highway was a great opportunity to help take care of our community and get to know Superintendent Dr. Christina Hinds.
Campus supervisor Derek Brooks switched schools in middle school from Riverside Middle School in Grand Rapids to Crossroads Middle School. He doesn’t regret anything because this district truly changed everything for him.
“My heart is here. When I moved here, this was a new start for me, a fresh start, and it’s what I needed at that time,” Brooks said. “I say it saved my life because it truly did.”
Northview is one of the schools in the area accepting the maximum allowed number of school of choice students. These are students that live out of the district and choose to attend Northview. Brooks was one of them. He went through a lot and he needed change. It was destiny that brought him to the high school because soon after he found out he loved it. He graduated from Northview high school and went to college at Davenport. Brooks decided he needed to come back to the high school to become a campus supervisor. Now he’s the happiest with his wife, kids and a job he loves.
“[Switching to Northview] got me out of my circumstances and really I concentrated and buckled down on what was important to me.” Brooks said.
While making a transition to a different school is scary, one student underwent an even greater change, stepping into a new country. Senior exchange student Alicia Waag jumped across the world from Spain, taking a massive risk, and she certainly does not regret it.
“[Moving to Northview] wasn’t so hard because I was just focusing on things like having fun. So I tried to ignore it if I had any problem with waking up and stuff. So, I wouldn’t say it was rough. It was normal.” Waag said.
Although this atmosphere is a huge adjustment, Waag is delighted with her experiences so far at the high school, and is taking it all in. She has no regrets about coming to Northview for an American high school experience, despite it being a huge transition.
If you try something new, like talking to a person you haven’t talked to before, it can allow new things in your life that wouldn’t have come about if you hadn’t taken the risk. Chances are you’ll start a new friendship that will last a lifetime but you don’t have to take it from just me. An article published from the American University School of Education has proven that putting yourself out there is crucial to developing new relationships
“Risk-taking involves putting oneself in the position of potentially losing something to achieve a goal,” American University School of Education said. “Classroom risk-taking can take many forms, such as reaching out to new friends, trying a new method of note taking, or stepping up to a leadership position in a group project.”
Making a big transition is no doubt a challenge for many, however the change is something many people need. Switching to Northview was the last piece of the puzzle that I was looking for all my life. The memories from before I moved will never be forgotten, they’ve taught me everything I know and how important it is to take risks.