When I entered Harker, unlike most people, I wasn’t a preschooler, a sixth grader, or a freshman. I was a sophomore. It has been one semester since school started, one semester since I became a Harker student.

My first week or so at Harker was an interesting one to say the least. The first real experience I had as a Harker student was during the sophomore class trip to a ropes course. It was there that I first met my advisory and finally confronted my fear of heights.

When we entered the Kokona forest campgrounds, I clearly recall looking up, seeing logs suspended 40 feet in the air, and thinking “Is it too late to go back to Lynbrook?” But my worries turned out to be unfounded.

I remember dangling on a rope, suspended between two gigantic redwood trees, and thinking “Huh, I could get used to this.” Not to the ropes course (I still suffer from acrophobia) but to being a part of the supportive and friendly group that my new advisory had turned out to be.

Of course, not all of my first experiences at Harker went as well as the ropes course had. During the first day of classes, I had two questions that I tried to answer throughout the entire day: “Was coming to Harker the right choice?”, “Where is Shah?”.

During the days that followed, I managed to find the answers to both questions, which were “yes” and “close to the main gates of the school.” Admittedly, though, I found the second answer much faster than the first.

It took a large amount of time to finally adapt to Harker, and I couldn’t have achieved it so easily without the help of my friends and teachers. I was shocked at how friendly my teachers were and how passionate they were about their respective subjects. Having come from a public school, albeit a very good one, the familiarity my fellow students had with our teachers astonished me.

I was sitting in Mr. Hurshman’s classroom during office hours one day, retaking a vocab quiz, when I saw a senior walk up to Mr. Hurshman. I initially didn’t think much about it, just thinking that she was another student of his here to ask for some help, when she started talking with him about her obsession with Buzzfeed, of all things.  

I had never seen a students act so casually towards their teachers before. It was a very strange atmosphere to me and took me a while to get used to. Nevertheless, I do believe that I have managed to get used to Harker, and I am being fairly successful.

Well, I survived first semester, so I guess all that’s left to say is:

“Once more unto the breach” – from Henry V, spoken by King Henry.