I was scared to go to high school. I'm the type of person that hates change and new things because I feel like I don't adapt easily. I thought a lot about it during the holidays, ‘what if i don’t make friends’ ‘what if it's too overwhelming for me’ ‘what if…’
I didn’t know a lot about Bethlehem college because it was a pretty small school compared to other schools and I didn't see Bethlehem girls walking around. My impression of Bethlehem College was that it would be an average Catholic school, to be as honest as possible i searched it up and saw some not good reviews about the school. Now I was naive and anxious about everything so now I was scared for orientation day but the time rolled around and it came.
Orientation day made me sick, my heart was pounding and I didn't know what it would give. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad as I imagined it to be, people were nice to me and we played all sorts of fun games. Even though orientation was nice I still felt an uneasy presence. No one I knew very well was coming to this school, that meant that I had to make new friends and practically start over. Knowing that really scared me, I'm not good at making friends and I wasn't that social so I didn't know how I was going to find some people to talk to.
After orientation was the first day of school. I hate being alone, it was the last thing I wanted to do. Since I didn't make any friends during orientation day I basically had no choice but to be alone. Some people at orientation comforted me and said that I didn't need to worry about making friends and high school in general. (I definitely should have listened to them haha) Another impression of high school is that we get a LOT of homework, I was worried that I wouldn’t finish the tasks and be very behind. As a procrastinator I was waiting for the D’s and F’s that would come rolling in.
As high school started I realised that all of my impressions were wrong! I made some nice friends. Bethlehem college was more than an average school; it had a lot of fun things like camp. (camp was AMAZING) I wasn’t behind on homework except for the assessments, I have been procrastinating a bit but that's not the point. I wish I didn’t worry so much about high school because it really isn’t a big deal, yes we kind of have homework everyday and moving around the school is a bit confusing but if you get into the habit of it you will get used to it.
To all the year 6’s who are scared to go to high school, don’t be. High school isn’t this huge step up from primary school. Also making friends isn’t as hard as you think.
- Cathy Wu
this is amazing! i'm a previous student at bethlehem college and let me just say i felt the exact way! sometimes it may take some time but adapting to high school is such an exciting time of your life. if you ever need support, your peer support leaders, teachers and friends are here for you