Jordan, Post-Graduate

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My name is Jordan.  I am a seventeen-year-old postgraduate from Thetford, Vermont, a small town of 2,000 that can be found right on the Connecticut River about midway up the state.  I have lived in places in the world ranging from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Petrozavodsk, Russia, to Kigali, Rwanda.  Phillips Academy became my newest home a month and a half ago and it already feels like I’ve been here forever.

I live in Andover Cottage, a smaller dorm in West Quad North along with twelve other kids, all of whom have become good friends.  I spend a lot of time in the dorm with them, but the school is so welcoming and open that I have many other friends through a variety of methods, be it playing on the soccer team, talking to kids in classes, or just sitting with an entirely random group of people in the dining hall.  Everyone here was new to PA once before and knows the feeling of arriving, so they empathize with my situation and make an extra effort to make my transition that much easier.

I made the decision to do a PG year mostly because I am so young.  I skipped eighth grade and jumped right into high school at 13, which was fine for a while but became an issue when I realized I didn’t want to be that young when I went to college.  Another year of high school at a new place seemed like the perfect thing for me and after a bit of a search, Andover emerged as the place I wanted to be at.

Life at PA for me consists of three main things: schoolwork, meeting new people, and playing soccer.  I won’t lie: the homework here can get a little alarming (but it is always manageable if you don’t let yourself get stressed out) and if you zone out in class for even a few minutes, you’ll be totally lost when you come back to earth.  But classes here are one of the best aspects of the school:  Everyone is so engaged and excited to be in the room (including the teachers, who are always just as enthusiastic as the kids) that discussions are always so interesting and stimulating that you never actually want to not pay attention!  My fellow students make this school what it is.  They come from such diverse backgrounds that everyone has an interesting story to tell and conversations never get dull.  If you do come to Andover, make sure to meet as many people as you can as you will almost never be disappointed!  Doing a sport is a great way to do this; for me, soccer has been enormously helpful to making my transition to new home that much easier.  Besides being a very talented team which should be contending for a spot in the Class A tournament, to have that core group of friends who support you is what got me through the first days of school when I didn’t know any of the building names.  And even though all of this takes a lot of time, I still try to carve out personal time each day when I can chill out and relax.  Sometimes I’ll play piano or blow a few notes on my harmonica, other times I’ll watch a movie with my friends, or sometimes, as my friends like to make fun of me for, I’ll climb a tree and get my feet off the ground.  But no matter what it is, these moments I take for myself relax and refresh me and make me even more excited to jump back into the Andover community.