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> For me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there inflicted on anyone who dared to show interest in c

> For me a lot of the stress came from the hostility and bullying that the kids who did not want to be there inflicted on anyone who dared to show interest in class Are american schools really that shitty? I thought it was a movie trope.

NickBusey 5y ago
I was walking down a hallway once in middle school and a kid I had never even talked to just walked up and punched me in the ear. Just an idea of the random violence that happens, as well as the psychological warfare campaigns these kids are capable of launching. It is definitely not just a movie trope.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  Isn't that a pretty serious crime? I hope you reported it.
  - GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
    Teachers often won’t/can’t do anything about it, why would the child think the cops would care
    - snicker7 5y ago
      Teachers get a lot of (empty) praise in the US. But many of them allow bullying. Many ARE the bullies. I've known a teacher who sold drugs to students. I remember a classmate who was r*ped by a teacher.
      - DataJunkie 5y ago
        I had a few good teachers in high school. I had excellent teachers in middle school. It is a profession that should be respected but there is a chicken and egg problem: 1) teachers are not respected by parents, administrators and politicians, 2) so very few of the people that would make great teachers go into teaching And in some states like California, it's very easy to become a teacher on an emergency credential. In the mid to late 90s when I was in school, most of our teachers were like 23 or 24 and were on emergency credentials. They were not the good ones.
      - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
        Why r*ped?
  - irrational 5y ago
    You will probably be suspended or expelled. I wish I was joking, but the schools usually have a zero tolerance policy which around here means both the bully and the bullied are considered equally at fault.
    - rriepe 5y ago
      They're then given a "fair and equal" punishment: An academically ruinous suspension for the kid that cares, and a vacation for the kid that doesn't. Every single problem America has, the kids end up paying for. This grew out of our sue-happy 80s/90s culture. School administrators basically opted out of their job because they were afraid of lawsuits.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Fights between minors are usually not treated as criminal matters. I think the formal mechanism is some wording about 'horseplay' or something.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Depends on where you are. Many schools are required to report any criminal activity, including assaults (fights). Then there's the no tolerance polices too.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - barry-cotter 5y ago
        The no tolerance policy is for the school’s benefit, not the students’. If you fought back you were fighting which means you will be punished too.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        ‘Fighting back’ isn’t defending yourself - it’s just fighting. People should leave and get an adult if they’re involved in a fight.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Lol it sounds like you've never been in a fight. How about if you're cornered or pinned? And how about if they're faster than you? Sometimes fighting is your best or only option. If it wasn't, then the corporate lawyers wouldn't allow 'fight' in the 'run, hide, fight' internal threat training. Not to mention, punishing people who defend themselves is counter to the laws and beliefs of society. So much for schools preparing people for life in the real world.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > run, hide, fight Can you see the order these are in? And people who think they're fighting back usually don't do the minimum to defend themselves. They very quickly turn into just brawling themselves as much as the other person was. Your right to defend yourself means doing the bare minimum to stop the threat against you or others. It doesn't mean 'standing your ground' and 'fighting back' like they think it does. You can see how when a teacher comes around the corner someone who's decided to fight back looks just as bad as the person who started it in many cases.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    To who? The crime police? They're the people who go around randomly punching people, a few years older.
  - mypalmike 5y ago
    "Kids will be kids. Why are you causing trouble? Can't you just try to get along?"
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    It’s a school. If you go to the police they’ll do their best to make it a school internal matter and the school will do their best to make sure there’s no external record of it happening. Maybe someone will get expelled. Absent broken bones or severe permanent scarring that’s about it unless you’re going to lawyer up.
- mmcgaha 5y ago
  I was in 7th grade and a 9th grader did the same to me. I am happy to report that sometimes the bully regrets his decisions. For people wondering about police, this was around 1986 so no police got involved. Things did not work that way back then.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  Impulse control isn't particularly developed for long after high school ages. Kinda makes you question other things people that age claim as absolutely true like "true love" or "worst day ever" or "my biology is wrong"
  - bawolff 5y ago
    That's bullshit. You don't need super strong impulse control not to punch randoms unprevoked. Teens will do impulsive things sometimes, that doesn't mean they get a blank cheque to hurt and assualt those around them.
  - LordDragonfang 5y ago
    >Kinda makes you question other things people that age claim as absolutely true like "true love" or "worst day ever" or "my biology is wrong" In all of those cases, the best thing to do for a teen's mental/emotional wellbeing is to take it seriously and treat them with respect. Everyone has to gain lived experience by living it, and you shouldn't try to invalidate their feelings just because they've experienced fewer of them.
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TwoBit 5y ago
Depends a lot on the school, or possibly more specifically: the location or demographics of the school. Many high schools with motivated students (eg where I went) have few issues and good education outcomes. Some others are little better than prisons with dysfunctional students.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Can't you change schools? In slovenia, you first go to elementary/grade school (used to be 1+8, now 9 years) until you're ~15yo, then you apply for high schools, and depending on your grades and other stuff, you get accepted to your chosen school (either "gymansium" - basically 'everything', or some kind of specific/trades school (mechanics, electricians, construction,...)). Usually if you're good in school, you get to a good high school and also have good classmates (atleast on your level)... but even in shitty, no-limit school (eg. 3year construction school), discipline is not really a major issue, and really shitty students either fail or get expelled very soon.
  - Jarwain 5y ago
    Distance and local regulations can make this tricky. Most people are zoned to a school based on where they live, and alternatives can be inconveniently far. Main exceptions are magnet or charter programs, but these can be competitive.
  - burlesona 5y ago
    In the US, typically: - you are assigned a school and changing schools varies from moderately difficult to impossible - kids under 16 cannot get to any high school other than their assigned one because they can’t drive (and at 16 they’d need a car, which not everyone can afford) - everyone HAS to be in school all day. It’s day care so parents can work. What you described in Slovenia sounds much better. It sounds like college in the US: people are there because they want to be there. High School in the US is just… a mess. There are people who think the point is to perform in the school band, or on the sports team, or in cheerleading etc. There are people who think the point is to hang out and have friends. There are people who think there is no point. And there are a few who think the point is to learn. Schools very a lot and in a place this big you can find all kinds of schools, but from everyone I’ve known the typical experience is academically a waste of time, and people’s feelings about High School are almost entirely determined by how many friends they had and thus how much fun they thought it was.
cmrdsprklpny 5y ago
I think it depends on the school. I've personally had a very positive high school experience in the U.S.
armchairhacker 5y ago
Some schools but definitely not all. My high school was really toned-down and chill. Everyone sort of got along (or at least it seemed like it to me, I could've been blind to some of it), we weren't all friends but there wasn't any fighting / violence. There was drama, sports, relationships, there were the jocks / nerds / weird kids, but nothing like the movies. This was in the early 2010s, and my town was suburban not rich and not poor.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  After my terrible high school experience I was surprised to meet people in college who said their school was like you describe. "Everyone basically got along". I wondered though that maybe if your aren't being the bully or the bullied, you might just not notice the hell that some of the kids are going through.
  - cbm-vic-20 5y ago
    I went to a "bad" inner-city high school (ie, poverty and the the things that go along with that, gang activity, kids being regularly sent to jail), the type where well-to-do parents in the city would pay to put their kids in private school or move to the suburbs, but the school had thousands of students. It wasn't too difficult to find a group or two to fit into. Everyone definitely did not get along, but you didn't need to get along with everyone...
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  - etempleton 5y ago
    I was generally popular and got along with most everyone and still found high school to be absolute hell, though really no more than middle or even elementary school. The issue, I think, comes from a lack of agency, you are told where to be and what to do all day every day. Every minute is scheduled and that wears on people and leads to stress and abnormal social interactions where kids pick at each other. I do think school plays an important role in social development and learning to interact and get along with others, but I think the environment sucks and isn’t even a great parallel to the real world in most cases. It is more like prison than anything. If you find yourself in a work place and think, “jeez, this place is like high school,” you should probably run.
bcrosby95 5y ago
My high school was super chill. There were standard groups such as jocks/nerds/etc. but lots of people would also move from one group to the other. There were even semi regular out-of-school events that involved people from all groups. I'm sure there was some bullying going on, but based upon my observations it didn't seem widespread. Of course I was a teenager and probably not the most observant person and may have had a skewed view of the average person's experience there.
ardit33 5y ago
they are not at all... mine was great (Halifax County High, VA). It is rated 5.5/10, so average school I guess and it was diverse. I attended it as an exchange student, (From Albania), from my senior year. I took mostly AP classes, and they were pretty good, as the average student was very/well motivated. They were smart and most went to good colleges after it. I got the chance to advance many of my skills, computer wise, and even took programming, which was great as it cemented my desire to pursue CS. (Pascal was the language being taught in 99). Things like AP physics and biology/chemistry were way behind my Albanian education. I can't image what Gen Ed physics would look like. (probably comparable to middle school level in former commie Europe). AP Calc, was challenging and on par with former communist country education (but very few people take those classes). Gen. Ed classes, (the ones where average people take) were a mixed bag, as they had plenty of students that clearly didn't want to be there, and just wanted a pass grade and move on. I also got to join the soccer team and I loved it. Made lots of friends, never got into a fight (perhaps because I was the only foreign student, and people were super friendly), went to the prom, and all that. Became friends with the popular/'in' group of girls, had a gf., etc... It was something like out of the movies. For me it was a great experience, and it really really depends on how you use it. If you take mostly AP classes, or participate in sports, it is a great thing. If you take the gen. ed classes, you will end up in classes that are designed more to just teach the bare minimum, as most students there don't have any interest in being there to begin with. The trend of reducing AP classes in the name of 'equity' is very troubling, as it remove the chances of smart students to have a stimulating environment, and let them learn at their faster pace.
- burlesona 5y ago
  My experience is that most Americans love students and coworkers from other countries. I remember specifically there was an exchange student from Germany who spent his senior year at my high school and it seemed like he dated a different girl every month, the whole school was enamored with him. He was interesting, told good stories.
  - b4ke 5y ago
    We had one of those, manny the German. Entertaining person, bit aggressive.... who isn’t sometimes. Our high school was brand new my frsshman year, and they only started with 9th and 10th, in a socio-economically affluent area. They also had multiple magnet programs and mandated racial demographic requirements (which forced the system to bus kids in from less affluent areas). These policies negatively impacted the social climate fairly significantly.... so I am really excited there are so many ways to skin the h.s. cat now. Your positive stories are reassuring me about my reluctance to engage my children as they get to school age in that same system.
em500 5y ago
Even inside the same city the variation between schools is huge, let alone across the entire country. So I think there's not much useful that can be be generalized about "american schools". This is also true in Europe: the schools in the poorer city districs in my very high HDI European country are probably quite shocking to upper middle class American suburbians. (Firearms are rare, but kids armed with knives are not uncommon.)
eyelidlessness 5y ago
Yes they're that shitty. Example: I got jumped by a group of ~30 kids in 8th grade for, IIRC, they didn't tell me why they just felt like it?? A teacher witnessed the end of it, off duty but saw what happened. She was nice enough to drive me home then never spoke of it again. It was just... normal that there was violence? Not an unusual school that had a reputation, no big stories of extreme incidents or measures taken, adjacent to (and eventually enveloped by) new affluent schools. Just... people being hideous to each other and nothing being done about it.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I went to 8 different schools in 6 different states by the time I graduated 12th grade, and I did not even so much as see someone get punched much less “jumped”. I am a minority and I never hung out with people who caused problems, but getting jumped by 30 kids sounds like an exceptionally bad environment.
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cvwright 5y ago
They apparently were much worse in the 1970s and 1980s. For most people I know it was significantly better by the mid 90s. And by all reports, it’s much better now. But yeah, the movie tropes were really a thing.
OminousWeapons 5y ago
A lot of it is contingent on school size. If you're going to a rural high school with a student body of < 300-500 people, you're experiencing middle school again with older teens. Predictably, this has a high probability of sucking if you aren't high up in the social hierarchy. My high school had almost 5,000 students and many middle schools from around the area fed into that high school. This created a college-like environment where freshmen didn't know 80-90% of the other students on day 1. The size and novelty gave people the freedom to be themselves and find friends easily.
- deleted 5y ago
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- pharmakom 5y ago
  > The size and novelty gave people the freedom to be themselves and find friends easily. This is precisely why most people are happier at university than high school, imo
ALittleLight 5y ago
There is a broad range of American public schools. Very nice to very bad with everything in between.

NickBusey 5y ago

I was walking down a hallway once in middle school and a kid I had never even talked to just walked up and punched me in the ear. Just an idea of the random violence that happens, as well as the psychological warfare campaigns these kids are capable of launching. It is definitely not just a movie trope.

zozbot234 5y ago
Isn't that a pretty serious crime? I hope you reported it.
- GoOnThenDoTell 5y ago
  Teachers often won’t/can’t do anything about it, why would the child think the cops would care
  - snicker7 5y ago
    Teachers get a lot of (empty) praise in the US. But many of them allow bullying. Many ARE the bullies. I've known a teacher who sold drugs to students. I remember a classmate who was r*ped by a teacher.
    - DataJunkie 5y ago
      I had a few good teachers in high school. I had excellent teachers in middle school. It is a profession that should be respected but there is a chicken and egg problem: 1) teachers are not respected by parents, administrators and politicians, 2) so very few of the people that would make great teachers go into teaching And in some states like California, it's very easy to become a teacher on an emergency credential. In the mid to late 90s when I was in school, most of our teachers were like 23 or 24 and were on emergency credentials. They were not the good ones.
    - Tabular-Iceberg 5y ago
      Why r*ped?
- irrational 5y ago
  You will probably be suspended or expelled. I wish I was joking, but the schools usually have a zero tolerance policy which around here means both the bully and the bullied are considered equally at fault.
  - rriepe 5y ago
    They're then given a "fair and equal" punishment: An academically ruinous suspension for the kid that cares, and a vacation for the kid that doesn't. Every single problem America has, the kids end up paying for. This grew out of our sue-happy 80s/90s culture. School administrators basically opted out of their job because they were afraid of lawsuits.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  Fights between minors are usually not treated as criminal matters. I think the formal mechanism is some wording about 'horseplay' or something.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Depends on where you are. Many schools are required to report any criminal activity, including assaults (fights). Then there's the no tolerance polices too.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      The no tolerance policy is for the school’s benefit, not the students’. If you fought back you were fighting which means you will be punished too.
      - chrisseaton 5y ago
        ‘Fighting back’ isn’t defending yourself - it’s just fighting. People should leave and get an adult if they’re involved in a fight.
        giantg2 5y ago
        Lol it sounds like you've never been in a fight. How about if you're cornered or pinned? And how about if they're faster than you? Sometimes fighting is your best or only option. If it wasn't, then the corporate lawyers wouldn't allow 'fight' in the 'run, hide, fight' internal threat training. Not to mention, punishing people who defend themselves is counter to the laws and beliefs of society. So much for schools preparing people for life in the real world.
        chrisseaton 5y ago
        > run, hide, fight Can you see the order these are in? And people who think they're fighting back usually don't do the minimum to defend themselves. They very quickly turn into just brawling themselves as much as the other person was. Your right to defend yourself means doing the bare minimum to stop the threat against you or others. It doesn't mean 'standing your ground' and 'fighting back' like they think it does. You can see how when a teacher comes around the corner someone who's decided to fight back looks just as bad as the person who started it in many cases.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  To who? The crime police? They're the people who go around randomly punching people, a few years older.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  "Kids will be kids. Why are you causing trouble? Can't you just try to get along?"
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  It’s a school. If you go to the police they’ll do their best to make it a school internal matter and the school will do their best to make sure there’s no external record of it happening. Maybe someone will get expelled. Absent broken bones or severe permanent scarring that’s about it unless you’re going to lawyer up.
mmcgaha 5y ago
I was in 7th grade and a 9th grader did the same to me. I am happy to report that sometimes the bully regrets his decisions. For people wondering about police, this was around 1986 so no police got involved. Things did not work that way back then.
jimmygrapes 5y ago
Impulse control isn't particularly developed for long after high school ages. Kinda makes you question other things people that age claim as absolutely true like "true love" or "worst day ever" or "my biology is wrong"
- bawolff 5y ago
  That's bullshit. You don't need super strong impulse control not to punch randoms unprevoked. Teens will do impulsive things sometimes, that doesn't mean they get a blank cheque to hurt and assualt those around them.
- LordDragonfang 5y ago
  >Kinda makes you question other things people that age claim as absolutely true like "true love" or "worst day ever" or "my biology is wrong" In all of those cases, the best thing to do for a teen's mental/emotional wellbeing is to take it seriously and treat them with respect. Everyone has to gain lived experience by living it, and you shouldn't try to invalidate their feelings just because they've experienced fewer of them.

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TwoBit 5y ago

Depends a lot on the school, or possibly more specifically: the location or demographics of the school. Many high schools with motivated students (eg where I went) have few issues and good education outcomes. Some others are little better than prisons with dysfunctional students.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Can't you change schools? In slovenia, you first go to elementary/grade school (used to be 1+8, now 9 years) until you're ~15yo, then you apply for high schools, and depending on your grades and other stuff, you get accepted to your chosen school (either "gymansium" - basically 'everything', or some kind of specific/trades school (mechanics, electricians, construction,...)). Usually if you're good in school, you get to a good high school and also have good classmates (atleast on your level)... but even in shitty, no-limit school (eg. 3year construction school), discipline is not really a major issue, and really shitty students either fail or get expelled very soon.
- Jarwain 5y ago
  Distance and local regulations can make this tricky. Most people are zoned to a school based on where they live, and alternatives can be inconveniently far. Main exceptions are magnet or charter programs, but these can be competitive.
- burlesona 5y ago
  In the US, typically: - you are assigned a school and changing schools varies from moderately difficult to impossible - kids under 16 cannot get to any high school other than their assigned one because they can’t drive (and at 16 they’d need a car, which not everyone can afford) - everyone HAS to be in school all day. It’s day care so parents can work. What you described in Slovenia sounds much better. It sounds like college in the US: people are there because they want to be there. High School in the US is just… a mess. There are people who think the point is to perform in the school band, or on the sports team, or in cheerleading etc. There are people who think the point is to hang out and have friends. There are people who think there is no point. And there are a few who think the point is to learn. Schools very a lot and in a place this big you can find all kinds of schools, but from everyone I’ve known the typical experience is academically a waste of time, and people’s feelings about High School are almost entirely determined by how many friends they had and thus how much fun they thought it was.

cmrdsprklpny 5y ago

I think it depends on the school. I've personally had a very positive high school experience in the U.S.

armchairhacker 5y ago

Some schools but definitely not all. My high school was really toned-down and chill. Everyone sort of got along (or at least it seemed like it to me, I could've been blind to some of it), we weren't all friends but there wasn't any fighting / violence. There was drama, sports, relationships, there were the jocks / nerds / weird kids, but nothing like the movies. This was in the early 2010s, and my town was suburban not rich and not poor.

mypalmike 5y ago
After my terrible high school experience I was surprised to meet people in college who said their school was like you describe. "Everyone basically got along". I wondered though that maybe if your aren't being the bully or the bullied, you might just not notice the hell that some of the kids are going through.
- cbm-vic-20 5y ago
  I went to a "bad" inner-city high school (ie, poverty and the the things that go along with that, gang activity, kids being regularly sent to jail), the type where well-to-do parents in the city would pay to put their kids in private school or move to the suburbs, but the school had thousands of students. It wasn't too difficult to find a group or two to fit into. Everyone definitely did not get along, but you didn't need to get along with everyone...
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- etempleton 5y ago
  I was generally popular and got along with most everyone and still found high school to be absolute hell, though really no more than middle or even elementary school. The issue, I think, comes from a lack of agency, you are told where to be and what to do all day every day. Every minute is scheduled and that wears on people and leads to stress and abnormal social interactions where kids pick at each other. I do think school plays an important role in social development and learning to interact and get along with others, but I think the environment sucks and isn’t even a great parallel to the real world in most cases. It is more like prison than anything. If you find yourself in a work place and think, “jeez, this place is like high school,” you should probably run.

bcrosby95 5y ago

My high school was super chill. There were standard groups such as jocks/nerds/etc. but lots of people would also move from one group to the other. There were even semi regular out-of-school events that involved people from all groups. I'm sure there was some bullying going on, but based upon my observations it didn't seem widespread. Of course I was a teenager and probably not the most observant person and may have had a skewed view of the average person's experience there.

ardit33 5y ago

they are not at all... mine was great (Halifax County High, VA). It is rated 5.5/10, so average school I guess and it was diverse. I attended it as an exchange student, (From Albania), from my senior year. I took mostly AP classes, and they were pretty good, as the average student was very/well motivated. They were smart and most went to good colleges after it. I got the chance to advance many of my skills, computer wise, and even took programming, which was great as it cemented my desire to pursue CS. (Pascal was the language being taught in 99). Things like AP physics and biology/chemistry were way behind my Albanian education. I can't image what Gen Ed physics would look like. (probably comparable to middle school level in former commie Europe). AP Calc, was challenging and on par with former communist country education (but very few people take those classes). Gen. Ed classes, (the ones where average people take) were a mixed bag, as they had plenty of students that clearly didn't want to be there, and just wanted a pass grade and move on. I also got to join the soccer team and I loved it. Made lots of friends, never got into a fight (perhaps because I was the only foreign student, and people were super friendly), went to the prom, and all that. Became friends with the popular/'in' group of girls, had a gf., etc... It was something like out of the movies. For me it was a great experience, and it really really depends on how you use it. If you take mostly AP classes, or participate in sports, it is a great thing. If you take the gen. ed classes, you will end up in classes that are designed more to just teach the bare minimum, as most students there don't have any interest in being there to begin with. The trend of reducing AP classes in the name of 'equity' is very troubling, as it remove the chances of smart students to have a stimulating environment, and let them learn at their faster pace.

burlesona 5y ago
My experience is that most Americans love students and coworkers from other countries. I remember specifically there was an exchange student from Germany who spent his senior year at my high school and it seemed like he dated a different girl every month, the whole school was enamored with him. He was interesting, told good stories.
- b4ke 5y ago
  We had one of those, manny the German. Entertaining person, bit aggressive.... who isn’t sometimes. Our high school was brand new my frsshman year, and they only started with 9th and 10th, in a socio-economically affluent area. They also had multiple magnet programs and mandated racial demographic requirements (which forced the system to bus kids in from less affluent areas). These policies negatively impacted the social climate fairly significantly.... so I am really excited there are so many ways to skin the h.s. cat now. Your positive stories are reassuring me about my reluctance to engage my children as they get to school age in that same system.

em500 5y ago

Even inside the same city the variation between schools is huge, let alone across the entire country. So I think there's not much useful that can be be generalized about "american schools". This is also true in Europe: the schools in the poorer city districs in my very high HDI European country are probably quite shocking to upper middle class American suburbians. (Firearms are rare, but kids armed with knives are not uncommon.)

eyelidlessness 5y ago

Yes they're that shitty. Example: I got jumped by a group of ~30 kids in 8th grade for, IIRC, they didn't tell me why they just felt like it?? A teacher witnessed the end of it, off duty but saw what happened. She was nice enough to drive me home then never spoke of it again. It was just... normal that there was violence? Not an unusual school that had a reputation, no big stories of extreme incidents or measures taken, adjacent to (and eventually enveloped by) new affluent schools. Just... people being hideous to each other and nothing being done about it.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I went to 8 different schools in 6 different states by the time I graduated 12th grade, and I did not even so much as see someone get punched much less “jumped”. I am a minority and I never hung out with people who caused problems, but getting jumped by 30 kids sounds like an exceptionally bad environment.

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cvwright 5y ago

They apparently were much worse in the 1970s and 1980s. For most people I know it was significantly better by the mid 90s. And by all reports, it’s much better now. But yeah, the movie tropes were really a thing.

OminousWeapons 5y ago

A lot of it is contingent on school size. If you're going to a rural high school with a student body of < 300-500 people, you're experiencing middle school again with older teens. Predictably, this has a high probability of sucking if you aren't high up in the social hierarchy. My high school had almost 5,000 students and many middle schools from around the area fed into that high school. This created a college-like environment where freshmen didn't know 80-90% of the other students on day 1. The size and novelty gave people the freedom to be themselves and find friends easily.

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pharmakom 5y ago
> The size and novelty gave people the freedom to be themselves and find friends easily. This is precisely why most people are happier at university than high school, imo

ALittleLight 5y ago

There is a broad range of American public schools. Very nice to very bad with everything in between.