A belief that I have come to hold after starting high school is that private schools fall short of the most important benefits that public schools have to offer. I have learned this through my own personal experience of going to a catholic grammar school for nine years, and then transitioning to the public high school that I currently attend. Of course, the main purpose of going to school is to gain a good education that will help you be successful in the future. This belief I do hold true; both private and public schools grant this opportunity. But public schools and private schools each grant an entirely different social experience, and the social experience, in my opinion, is much more valuable than the academic experience.
Along with gaining an education, part of being successful in life is learning how to interact and form relationships with people who are different from you. In grammar school, the majority of the people I met were white, Catholic, and of the same learning ability. Every day at school, students were expected to wear uniform clothes, uniform hair styles, and learn at a uniform pace. There were no accommodations for people with slower learning paces; everyone was expected to keep up. Growing up, this is how I expected all schools were like. For nine years I was almost blinded to the fact that people of different religion and learning pace, even physical appearance, even existed in the real world. But the fact is there are more types of people than Catholics and quick learners. For this reason, I decided to branch out and try something new by attending a public high school.

My freshman year of high school was an amazing eye-opener for me. I met a greater variety of people in a single classroom at high school than I did in my entire grammar school career. I have met people with long hair, short hair, black hair, and purple hair. I have met