By Stephanie Xiang
Only two days into the new school year, sophomore Angelina Ricker is already looking ahead. After an evening spent hanging out with friends Raina and Emily at Emily’s House, Angelina reflected on a summer that took her around the world, her freshman-year memories, and the challenges and opportunities awaiting her in sophomore year.
For Angelina, the Riverbank is hardly unfamiliar territory. She has attended Lovett since kindergarten and is now beginning her sophomore year. “I’ve been here for 11 years,” she said. As a Lovett “lifer,” Angelina has grown up on the Riverbank, but this year’s return feels different from her first days in the Upper School. With freshman year behind her, she is coming back with more experience, more confidence, and a better idea of what high school will demand.
Before returning to Lovett, Angelina had a summer that stretched far beyond Atlanta. One of her biggest highlights was traveling internationally and visiting five new countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Thailand, and China. After spending part of the summer exploring unfamiliar places, she has returned to a place she knows well and a school year that will bring plenty of new experiences of its own.
Angelina is facing more academic responsibilities. “This is my first year with an AP class,” she said. Schoolwork, however, is only part of what is changing. Angelina is also beginning to think more seriously about volunteering, getting a job, and learning to drive. “It’s only been two days,” she said, but she knows this is the year when she has to “lock in.”
That phrase captures much of Angelina’s attitude toward the year ahead. She knows sophomore year may be demanding, but she has also set high expectations for herself. One of her goals is to succeed in her first AP course and eventually earn a five on the AP World exam. She also expects math to be one of her strongest subjects. Despite recognizing the stress of balancing classes and responsibilities outside school, Angelina remains confident about what she hopes to accomplish. “I’m looking forward to acing this year, because that’s what I’m going to do,” she said.
Not everything on Angelina’s mind, however, involves grades, jobs, or future plans. One new activity she is particularly excited about is working with clay. She recently started taking ceramics and hopes it might develop into a new hobby. When asked what she was not looking forward to, she decided to spin things around more positively: “I am looking forward to clay making.” The creative outlet may offer a welcome contrast to her increasingly busy schedule. Between harder classes, volunteering, the possibility of a job, and learning to drive, working with clay gives her a chance to focus on creating something rather than worrying about the next assignment or deadline.
Beginning sophomore year has also given Angelina a chance to look back on what it felt like to enter the Upper School for the first time. One of the biggest adjustments she remembers from freshman year was simply learning how to move through a larger school environment. “In middle school, all your classes are on the same level,” she said. Once she reached the Upper School, getting to class suddenly meant moving between different floors throughout the day. She also remembers looking around at the older students and thinking, “All the seniors were, like, kind of tall.” Those details may seem small now, but as a new freshman, they helped make high school feel much bigger and less familiar. A year later, Angelina walks through the same hallways with the experience of someone who already knows what to expect.
Some of her strongest memories of starting high school have little to do with academics. Before freshman orientation, Angelina carefully curled her hair into a blowout, hoping to arrive with the look she had planned. Atlanta’s August humidity had other ideas. So did one of the orientation activities. “I had to do human pyramids,” she recalled. Before long, her carefully styled hair “just poofed up in the humidity.” What may have been frustrating in the moment has become a story she can laugh about a year later.
Those freshman-year memories also show how much can change in only one year. This August, she is returning as a sophomore with a clearer sense of how high school works. The community center is being remodeled. The Upper School building has not changed dramatically, but her place within it has. Instead of wondering what high school will be like, she is now thinking about what she wants to accomplish while she is here.
Outside the classroom, Angelina’s interests provide another glimpse into her summer and personality. Her summer reading included George Orwell’s 1984 and Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone. She is also hoping to see The Odyssey in IMAX, although finding the right showing has been a challenge. Together with traveling, spending time with friends, and working with clay, those interests reflect a summer filled with experiences very different from the routine of a normal school day.
After 11 years at Lovett, returning to the Riverbank itself may feel routine for Angelina. Angelina may not know exactly what the next nine months will bring, but she already knows how she wants to approach them. She is ready to “lock in” and determined to do well.
At the end of an interview filled with international travel, freshman memories, AP goals, and plans for the year ahead, Angelina had one much more immediate destination in mind. It was already around 11:30 p.m. when she was asked where she was headed next.
“To sleep,” she said with a laugh.
