By Julienne Alphonse
Everyone’s first day at school is chaotic and nerve-racking, but imagine putting yourself through that twice in one week at two different schools.
According to the Loy Norrix administrative office, about 471 ninth grade students are enrolled at Loy Norrix this academic year. Freshman Claire Goodwin-Kelly is also part of the 3 percent of freshmen students that attend the Kalamazoo Area Math and Science Center (KAMSC).
As a freshman, coming in to a totally new high school environment, balancing regular school with KAMSC’s accelerated program can be nerve-racking.
“It was more overwhelming and exciting on my first day at Loy Norrix than KAMSC because of the upperclassmen and it felt more like high school,” said Goodwin-Kelly.
On the first day of high school, Goodwin-Kelly came to Norrix and then went to KAMSC the following day. Although she got lost at Loy Norrix a couple times and was overwhelmed at KAMSC, she was excited to be in high school. Goodwin-Kelly had prepared herself for her new experiences and had made up her mind that Loy Norrix was where she was going to spend her four years of high school.
Goodwin-Kelly liked both of the schools she was attending, especially KAMSC where she was able to make friends easily.
“I had a group of 15 best friends at KAMSC,” said Goodwin-Kelly.
At KAMSC, Goodwin-Kelly takes three classes (Honors Biology, Geometry and Information Technology). As a freshman, Goodwin-Kelly goes to KAMSC in the morning and then comes to Loy Norrix in the afternoon. KAMSC freshmen and sophomores attend classes at Loy Norrix in the morning and upperclassmen attend LN in the afternoon.
Now that Goodwin-Kelly has been attending KAMSC and Norrix for more than a trimester, she has begun to notice that she is missing out on extra curricular activities.
“After three months at KAMSC, I did not feel like a student at Loy Norrix. I value and want to be part of extracurriculars,” said Goodwin-Kelly.
Even though it is exciting and challenging at KAMSC, Goodwin-Kelly feels that she misses out a lot at Loy Norrix like school games, clubs and small things like morning announcements. Godwin-Kelly plans to be on the LN soccer team and Knight Life next academic year as part of her extracurriculars at LN. She also feels stressed about the homework and projects that she has to do.
Due to all this, Goodwin-Kelly is thinking of not attending KAMSC next academic year. She is thinking of joining that 97 percent of students who attend Loy Norrix full-time.
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Freshman Thinks of Missing out at LN because of KAMSC
April 16, 2019
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