Elsa Cuckierman, Grade 11
UWCSEA (Dover)
The last term of Grade 11, fondly known as ‘hell term’ by UWC students, is supposed to be the worst term of your life. IA’s, internals and predicted grades abound, all uniting Juniors from around the world in terror. This year, however, ‘hell term’ has taken on a whole new meaning. COVID-19 has drastically changed the way Grade 11’s must approach the university application process: our internal exams, the most significant point of reference for our predicted grades, have been cancelled, leaving students in the dark as to how our grades will be calculated. IA’s must be handed in from home with limited help and contact from our teachers. Even report cards are rumoured to have been replaced with ATL’s, leaving worried students with even less information on where their academics stand. Grade 11 students are finding themselves more anxious about the end of the term than students in the years before them, and this worry is taking over their ability to enjoy the last few weeks before their summer.
But in all of our worries about where our academics stand, we are overlooking what past years would have wished for during hell term. We are overlooking that we no longer have any commute time to get to school. We are overlooking that admission counsellors and teachers alike understand what we are going through, and are willing to make exceptions for the turbulent time we find ourselves living in. We are overlooking that being at home, without activities or interaction, gives us all the time in the world to do what is important to us.
Our whole lives, we wish for more time. We say that we would pick up a new hobby or learn a new language if only we didn’t have so many activities going on, if only we didn’t have an activity to go to on the weekend. Being shut in at home may make you crazy, but it also gives us what we have always asked for, what we continuously use as an excuse for refusing to grow. When you look at it this way, quarantine is almost too short: we only have one more month to explore everything we have ever wanted to do if we only had time before recommencing the hustle and bustle of our daily routine.
Personally, I have been using this time to try and delve deeper into philosophy. I have been taking my textbook, flipping it open on a random page, and torturing my brain into trying to find the answer to the philosophical question being posed. So far, my only progress in finding a definitive answer has been destroying any faith I have in the axioms I hold dear, but they’re axioms that I wouldn’t have had time to question if I were busy filling my schedule with the fifty different activities all UWC students take part in. I’ve also been watching political podcasts, listening to views that divert from my own and questioning political ideologies I have believed in my whole life. I have been directing home movies, writing and taking political economics classes online. I have been using my time to do things that are important to me, foregrounding activities that I thoroughly enjoy and sidelining extracurriculars that I’m finding out don’t mean as much to me.
Quarantine is revealing to each and every one of us what really matters in our lives. Left to our own devices, without any commitments or duties, without a way to add tangible extracurriculars to our week, we are inadvertently finding out what our passions really are. With no teacher supervision over what you’re reading, the book that you choose to pick up is the one that really appeals to you. With no mandatory break time, the friends that you actively decide to call up are the ones that you will stay in contact with when high school is over. Without social pressures, the sides of us that remain intact are the sides of us that reveal who we really are.
The reason this term of Grade 11 is deemed ‘hell term’ is because it is the term that dictates what our lives will look like after high school. It is the term where we buckle down and decide whether we want to pursue a gap year or NS when we determine if we're going to major in physics or history. It is the first time we are asked to define who we are as people, to compile a blueprint of ourselves into a university application. Instead of spending our quarantine stressed out about the substantial life decisions coming our way, we should pause and listen to what our mind is already telling us. College is all about discovering who you are and what you stand for, so why not start now?
But in all of our worries about where our academics stand, we are overlooking what past years would have wished for during hell term. We are overlooking that we no longer have any commute time to get to school. We are overlooking that admission counsellors and teachers alike understand what we are going through, and are willing to make exceptions for the turbulent time we find ourselves living in. We are overlooking that being at home, without activities or interaction, gives us all the time in the world to do what is important to us.
Our whole lives, we wish for more time. We say that we would pick up a new hobby or learn a new language if only we didn’t have so many activities going on, if only we didn’t have an activity to go to on the weekend. Being shut in at home may make you crazy, but it also gives us what we have always asked for, what we continuously use as an excuse for refusing to grow. When you look at it this way, quarantine is almost too short: we only have one more month to explore everything we have ever wanted to do if we only had time before recommencing the hustle and bustle of our daily routine.
Personally, I have been using this time to try and delve deeper into philosophy. I have been taking my textbook, flipping it open on a random page, and torturing my brain into trying to find the answer to the philosophical question being posed. So far, my only progress in finding a definitive answer has been destroying any faith I have in the axioms I hold dear, but they’re axioms that I wouldn’t have had time to question if I were busy filling my schedule with the fifty different activities all UWC students take part in. I’ve also been watching political podcasts, listening to views that divert from my own and questioning political ideologies I have believed in my whole life. I have been directing home movies, writing and taking political economics classes online. I have been using my time to do things that are important to me, foregrounding activities that I thoroughly enjoy and sidelining extracurriculars that I’m finding out don’t mean as much to me.
Quarantine is revealing to each and every one of us what really matters in our lives. Left to our own devices, without any commitments or duties, without a way to add tangible extracurriculars to our week, we are inadvertently finding out what our passions really are. With no teacher supervision over what you’re reading, the book that you choose to pick up is the one that really appeals to you. With no mandatory break time, the friends that you actively decide to call up are the ones that you will stay in contact with when high school is over. Without social pressures, the sides of us that remain intact are the sides of us that reveal who we really are.
The reason this term of Grade 11 is deemed ‘hell term’ is because it is the term that dictates what our lives will look like after high school. It is the term where we buckle down and decide whether we want to pursue a gap year or NS when we determine if we're going to major in physics or history. It is the first time we are asked to define who we are as people, to compile a blueprint of ourselves into a university application. Instead of spending our quarantine stressed out about the substantial life decisions coming our way, we should pause and listen to what our mind is already telling us. College is all about discovering who you are and what you stand for, so why not start now?
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