We've All Grown Up.

The transition between middle school to high school is drastic. Especially from a school of 700 kids to a school of 400 kids. Having gone to a Vocational high school, the typical high school stuff is brought down to a minimum. The "typical high school stuff" being violence, bullying, drama, etc. On the first day, I was convinced I had made the wrong choice by leaving all my friends behind. But once I started to open up and get to know people, that changed my whole perspective. And lastly, we all leave with more knowledge than a normal high school could ever give us.

At North Shore Tech, every single person there has a goal: To be successful at something they enjoy. Out of the 13 vocations, students are allowed to choose one to study for their remaining three years. They go through all of the shops for Freshman year. Because they all have goals, it's rare to find a student who's going to risk getting kicked out of the school, which is very easy. Therefore, Freshmen were left alone, there's no violence other than horseplay and other than the typical dramatics that girls display, there's really no gossip or hurtful words. This was a big switch from my middle school, where, even though it was a huge school, word spread quickly. If you opened your mouth, the words would be around the school in a matter of minutes. There were fights constantly between students. Weapons and drugs were distributed throughout the school. Gang members even attended the school! An eighth grader stabbed another girl in the leg with an Xacto knife when she turned him down for the last dance of the year! It was almost expected every week that something was going to happen. While everyone else cried on the last day of school, I jumped for joy at the very thought.

But, of course, there were downsides to starting at the Tech. Being alone. Before I knew what other Gloucester kids came to the Tech, I felt so alone at the thought of not having my best friends by my side. Even though I talked to them everyday after school and made plans with them on the weekends, I felt almost empty. I nearly regretted making the choice I did of going to the Tech. I almost cried on the first day of school when I got lost and I was all alone. But when I started opening up to the other students, I started missing home less and less. I still miss my friends so much that it hurts, but making new friends warmed up my heart just enough that I wasn't hurting inside any longer. And I still have the best relationships with my friends even though I see them for a very limited time during the week, if at all. And even though my "Techie" friends aren't the same, they're still friends and that's all I could ever ask for.

The people I go to classes with are brilliant. Debates happen constantly in my classes and they're not fights, they're intelligent conversations. But what I love most is shop. The Exploratory program was the most brilliant thing I think that school could ever have come up with. The fact that if even if we hate the shop we're in for that particular week, we still learn a lot more than if we hadn't taken the shop in the first place. So far, I've learned how to do perspective drawings in Commercial Arts and also how to measure the opposite side of the face so that it's symmetrical. I've learned how to create a functional light circuit in Electrical. I've made a battery-operated lighthouse in Machine Tech [see Passing with Flying Colors]. And lastly, I've used so many different machines and made so many different things in Carpentry, that I know I'll be using these some time in my life. So even though I'm only interested in taking Commercial Arts at the moment, and I plan on retaking Electrical at the end of Exploratory, I've learned so much.

So I'm proud of the choice I made to go to the Tech. I know that if I had gone to my local high school, I probably would not be the person I am right now. I love the civil people, the new, friendly people that I've befriended, and the fact that I feel as if I'm smarter just by taking the shops. So even though I left my friends behind at my old school, I took that risk and made that decision to do what I wanted instead of what my peers told me to do. So, in my opinion, that's the strongest decision I've had to make in a very long time.