by John Srouji
For most of us, Lovett is nothing new. We’ve been driving around with an “L” on the back of our cars (or our parents’ cars) since lower school. Or perhaps we came in middle school and can remember playing foursquare outside of Rollins.
But for some upper schoolers, Lovett is a brand new place. Fried ravioli? New. Chapel? New. Mr. Alig’s bowties? New.
I sat down with four students new to the Lovett community to find out how things have been going.
First off I met up with Sara Heilmann, a sophomore coming all the way from San Francisco. We connected during lunch so we missed out on corn dogs, when Lovett’s cafeteria turns into a state fair.
She started off by telling me how she was already very impressed with how we are such a community here at Lovett. She told me that everyone so far has been really nice and helpful to her as a new student.
One of the major things that stood out to her was Lovett’s size. “I come from a really small school so having such a big school was kind of different,” she says. Because of the smaller size, she says at her old school there were more official social events.
So far the workload has not been too difficult for Sara, and the primary difficulty has been just adjusting to all of the new classes and, of course, a new school.
Right now Sara is participating in JV Volleyball and plans on playing tennis and lacrosse later on this year. She told me that she’s been to some of the football games and went to a few of the Varsity Volleyball games as well.
As for how she’s adjusting to Georgia as a whole, she told me that she had actually already lived in Georgia for two years before moving to San Francisco, so being back in Georgia isn’t too much of an adjustment for her.
She did tell me, however, that some of the things that are different for her include the weather and the ways she gets to school and home from school.
Next up, I talked to Lillian Turner, a new junior coming from Virginia. You may be able to spot Lillian by her short colorful hair. In fact, throughout the interview, we were interrupted by multiple people stopping to compliment her hair.
Lillian echoed Sara’s observation that Lovett is a much bigger school than where she came from. But the biggest change for her is that Lovett is coed, unlike the all-girls Christian school she attended.
One of the first things she told me was that she thought it was a lot more like a stereotypical high school. She found it cool how we actually have lockers, something they didn’t have at her old school. She was also pretty impressed by how welcoming everyone has been to her so far and she was surprised at how easy it was for her to find friends here.
As for the workload, she told me that so far it’s been better than she expected, but that “it’s still pretty stressful sometimes.”
So far, Lillian’s favorite lunch has been the fried ravioli. (Clearly, she had Lion blood in her.)
Lillian let me know that she plans on helping stage-manage the plays and musicals, but that she doesn’t plan on auditioning for any of them.
She told me that her favorite class has either been American Studies (how?!?!) or Tech Theater.
Sebastian Schroeter crossed the border to our north, coming from Canada, where he lived for four years. Before that, he lived in Savannah. Like the other new students, Sebastian was very impressed with Lovett’s size.
“It’s huge. Everything’s so hectic, but it’s exciting. There’s always something exciting going on,” he tells me. In particular, he was referring to all of the clubs, classes, and opportunities we have here at Lovett and that he enjoys getting to hear about all of them during Morning Meetings. And one of his favorite opportunities so far has been frequenting the Café. He likes having the option to go during break or even during lunch when he doesn’t want the food that’s in the cafeteria.
He told me that he really appreciated how in every class, there are different people, so he’s always getting to meet new people and that as a new student, that’s really nice.
He recognized that already this has been his hardest academic year so far, but that he’s “always liked a challenge.”
This winter, he plans “on doing basketball and hopefully I’ll make varsity.” He also plans on doing track and field this Spring. He told me he’s been going to some of the games, and had a lot of fun going to the first football game because he had never been to a high school football game before.
Lastly, I spoke with a new Freshman, Harrison Fei.
The first thing he mentioned to me was how different the schedule was from where he came from. At his old school, he had a fixed schedule with the same classes every day, but he told me that he much prefers Lovett’s rotating schedule. He said that he hasn’t really had a tough time adjusting to the longer class periods and a different schedule.
Harrison let me know that he doesn’t plan on doing any sports here at Lovett, but that outside of Lovett he will be playing hockey. He told me he wants to go see one of the Lovett games, but because of how far away he lives, he hasn’t had the chance to go just yet.
As for clubs, he’s doing Speech and Debate, which is where he was heading after the interview.
According to Harrison, his favorite part of Lovett so far is that how at lunch, he doesn’t have to pay each time to get the food. He told me that already the lunches are much better than what they were at his old school. His favorite lunch so far has been the tacos.
I asked him what his favorite class has been so far and he told me that it was computer science. He told me that so far in computer science they’ve just been doing some block programming. As for his least favorite class, he said it was either Math or P.E. because in P.E., he can’t just “sit there and be lazy,” and math because he has no choice but “to sit there and be lazy.”
Just like everyone else I interviewed, Harrison mentioned how one of his first impressions of Lovett was that “it’s a big private school.” And on top of the tacos, the extra-curriculars, and computer science, Lovett was one added benefit — “it also doesn’t look like a prison like my last school did.”
