What Uni Does To Us

Coming in to my fifth year at Uni High, I feel as though I'm finally qualified to talk about what the place is actually like. I don't think many people really dislike Uni as a whole, but then very few people have an entirely positive view of it either. Those people tend to get made fun of, unfortunately. Like so many others, I have to admit that I've often wondered what it would have been like to go to Central or UHS instead. Maybe I would have known more people, gone to more parties, had more fun. On the other hand it's not a given that anyone who has good friends here would have found any at another school; maybe I would have spent a lot more time by myself. As time has gone I've mostly accepted that for me, any other high school experience is unknowable, and that I need to try to make peace with the one I'm having.

While Uni may not be known for great parties, there's still something to be said for the tight-knit quality of the social scene here. It's a true cliche that people know each others' names here, and while we tend to devolve into cliques by freshman year most people can at least hold a conversation. You do really feel like you have some sort of connection to almost everyone, even if it's just some small thing you did together as sophomores. And of course the teachers are fantastic, and the small size lets you feel like you have much more personal connections with them than might be possible at a larger high school.

That said, I think there are still a few things worth complaining about. The small size in particular is a double-edged sword; while it can be comforting it can also be isolating, and many Uni students feel very cut off from the rest of the world. There's definitely a bubble around us, with the opportunities to interact with people who aren't middle-upper class white/asian kids being pretty limited. It feels sometimes like there are a few background types everyone shared, and people who don't quite fit in with those are often isolated. Even within our tiny bubble, it feels like there are some pretty intense splits running roughly along such ridiculous divides as future choice of major or past middle school. In particular the STEM and humanities kids tend to keep with their own kinds, with all the future doctors, lawyers, and other upper-class miscellany shifting around amorphously. It's a very strange split but it's one that gets voiced pretty often, and one which I have to admit I'm not immune to. My friends tend to be the ones who plan on teaching English or sociology, not doing research in biochemistry. If there's a good side to this split it's that it is probably based more on personality type than actual prejudice -- the kinds of people who really value science (and money) tend to act differently than those who really value the arts (and meaningful conversation). Needless to say, in the real world the split between being a professor of chemistry and a professor of history isn't as big as it seems in the minds of most Uni students.

When all is said and done it's hard to weigh conclusively whether going to Uni is a good idea or a bad idea. Certainly a lot of people get a lot out of it; but then there are others who spend five years mostly alone and learn to hate everything it stands for. It's up to individual students to decide whether the relationships they've built here make up for what they've missed out on elsewhere. I'll never know if Uni was really the best place for me, since I can't measure the way I've grown here with how I would have grown at Central, but as the specter of college looms and I'm starting to realize all the people, places, and little quirks that I'll miss about the place, my answer is starting to look like a yes.