High school is when you find your first love, drive your first car, and get a taste of the real world: the bitter, the sweet, and the in-between. But Monta Vista brings you to a dimension where grades are worshiped and sleep can be a rare commodity. Instead of this being the best four years of my our lives, some just find themselves wanting to get out of here.
As the year progresses, the complaining goes from a quiet rumble to it being heard in the hallways during every passing period. However, even though the MV is notorious for the workload and stress, this school never fails to appear on Newsweek’s top high schools of the United States, coming in 87th in 2012. Students with older siblings who have graduated still stay here, most of them refusing to move out of the area. Something must be going right here.
Sophomore Ketaki Malaviya’s older sister, Kasturi Malaviya, graduated from Monta Vista six years ago, and while Kasturi came in with an earful of negative feedback from the upperclassmen, she came to appreciate the academic push she was receiving from her friends.
The generally high standards that teachers and students set for each other cultivate the need to aim higher and higher as the year progresses.
Kasturi’s experience in an out-of-state college allowed her to compare herself to students from backgrounds that vastly contrast her own. She found that people were still under the illusion that the “real world” was a fantasy they would never have to worry about; she was one of the few who took her classes seriously.
In life outside of school, hard work does not always equal success. Along with the work, people have to be able to prioritize, organize, and adjust to situations they’re not comfortable in. Monta Vista teaches its students to foster these responsibilities as soon as possible.
The stress that is scaring so many of the students is caused by the narrow-mindedness of the concept of high school at MV. The entire premise is to learn about yourself, to explore the world, and to find what you really love. But several MV students have obstructed the purpose of high school. It has turned into a race for the highest GPA.
But in that race, each individual thrives in his or her own way. While not everyone gets straight A’s in every AP class, the difference from the beginning and end of all the effort is astronomical.
These little things added up to the success that Kasturi is today. She didn’t work herself up to get stellar grades, nor did she beat herself up for not being the best of the best, but she learned a lot from this school.
“Work as hard as you can and then just chill. That’s all you can do.”
