I went to a small high school. Like a really small high school.
I attended Westmont High School and my graduating class was around 125 students. The attending number of students can vary between 475 to 500 students. This means that everybody knew everybody else. If there was a new student, everyone would know about it even if they weren't in the same class. This size of school can have many benefits but it can also have a lot of negative aspects.
From sixth grade to my senior year of high school, I saw the same people every day for over seven years. I got to know everyone incredibly personally. You see the patterns in their behaviors and you build a character in your mind of how you expect everyone act. You know the burn outs, the outgoing individuals, the really smart people, the band musicians, the artists, the athletes, the scummy people. You know each and every one of these people by name.
It was to the point where I would move to three different lunch tables to hang out with all my friends each day. As for me, I wasn't in any of these groups. I didn't do anything to stand out in any crowds. If anything, people just thought I was weird but enjoyable to be around. I wasn't super smart, artistic, outgoing or athletic. I could be funny sometimes but I never tried too hard to stand out as the funny guy. In fact, my most identifying feature was probably my embarrassing crazy white boy afro that was out of control.
(This is me sophomore year)
What sucked about going to such a small school was that once people know the person that you are, you can never be a different person. There were so many times where I wished that I could come to school and suddenly have no one know who I was. I just wanted to start a new page or meet someone who didn't know the side of me that everyone perceives me to be. I wanted to show different sides of my personality. The sides that I know someone out there would come to love about me. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't bullied or ostracized, but I did grow tired of playing the same role for seven years of my life. For those poor kids who were ostracized because of who they were in junior high, they could never shake that reputation in Westmont. Even I was incapable of seeing someone different from who they were years ago. It's not the fault of the students, it's just the nature of going to a small school.
That's one major reason I love going to a big school like College of DuPage. I get to meet someone new every day and be a completely different person. I can build the personality that I want everyone else to perceive me as. I can have intelligent conversations with complete strangers, or be witty and funny in class.
What I liked about going to such a small school was that the staff cared a lot more about us students than other bigger schools could. Some teachers I had multiple times throughout all four years in my school. The teachers could actually see all of the potential in each student and focus on each student to help them succeed in school. Some of my teachers were more like parents to me. They helped me when I failed and celebrated when I succeeded (shout out to Mr. Landreth). I wasn't exactly the best student in high school, as in I got mostly C's, this means that I got the "You're a smart kid and I know you can try harder," speech a lot. A lot of the times I didn't listen to them because I convinced myself that I wasn't smart, but there were some teachers that truly saw how smart I was, and it was those teachers that pushed me to believe in myself to succeed. It is because of them that I now work hard to learn and succeed in school.
