I began my education at Rivermont Collegiate in preschool and continued there until freshman year of high school. Being a private school, Rivermont was only composed of around two hundred and fifty students making up lower school, middle school, or upper school, as we referred to it. Middle and upper school were held in an old mansion, Mr. Bettendorf’s old house. Taking classes in the mansion was one of the main things my class looked forward to before middle school, and all of us pretended it was haunted and full of secrets, which very well could’ve been true. The mansion consisted of four spacious floors, and a consistent dark hue of red. Preschool through fifth grade was held in a normal school building, and from preschool to eighth grade …show more content…
I was so accustomed to doing the same things every year with the same people, that I thought of how much it would hurt to not do those things. Although it’s cliche, it’s so difficult to appreciate moments and people until you don’t have them anymore. Transferring to Pleasant Valley was one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced, but it was also a great learning experience. I went from seeing the same sixteen people everyday for years to seeing hundreds of people a day and not spending more than forty-five minutes the same group of people. For the first time in my life I felt like an outsider. Transitiong from talking all day and laughing with my best friends to barely ever speaking all day made me question why I ever left Rivermont. For months I begged my parents to let me go back because I had no friends and I always felt alone. I began to think that nobody wanted to talk to me or be friends with me because I was too weird. Almost everyone at Pleasant Valley had been in the district their whole life and I felt that I would never actually be good friends with anyone because I didn’t have any history with them. After transferring I grew as a person and learned how to make new friends and that change is not always bad after a while. Although I don’t regret transferring, I am extremely grateful to have gone to Rivermont and had the opportunity to form such strong bonds from a young age. It’s important to have those bonds with people, to guide and support you when you’re growing up and trying to figure out who you are; but it’s also important to have new experiences and step out of your comfort