This year, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down, and for high school seniors, these students experienced a senior year unlike any we’ve ever seen before. But life goes on, and despite the chaos COVID-19 has caused, students at international schools all over Beijing are graduating in good spirits and high hopes for the future. Congratulations to the Class of 2020!

Meet Caitlin Y, a Chinese-Australian graduate from Harrow International School Beijing (HBJ)‘s class of 2020.

Next year I’ll either be attending Cambridge or LSE majoring in History + Politics/International Relations.

My favorite memories from HBJ are school trips. When I first joined Harrow in Year 7 we went on a drama trip to Los Angeles, then later we did various other trips including the International Award trip in Year 9. They allowed me to see my classmates in a different light and everyone was supportive of and friendly to each other during those trips. They have been both educational and fun, I would say that educational workshops during a trip are by far my favorite method of learning!

My school has helped shape me in many ways. I became more aware of my status as a global citizen and I tend to look at issues and current affairs with a global perspective. Moreover, I have developed the habit of stepping out of my comfort zones and maintaining an everlasting curiosity to learn about anything – I am learning Chinese sign language and python coding language now which I would never have imagined learning before I came to Harrow.

I’ve learned practical studying strategies that’ll help in college such as referencing, academic writing, and identifying helpful resources. However, it is the skill to communicate and set targets with my teachers that I feel will most help me thrive in a university environment where I have to proactively communicate with my lecturers and professors.

I don’t have a favorite teacher. Everyone had been extremely helpful during my times at Harrow, shout out to all my subject teachers!

If I could go back and change one thing about my high school experience perhaps I would want to spend more time focusing on my interests alongside my academic pursuits – such as developing my interests in the performing arts – music and drama – more thoroughly alongside doing the humanities as my A-Level subjects.

I think a balance between academic success and strong friendships is important. The ideal situation would be meeting friends who would want to improve with you on an academic journey towards your goals. I value the sense of accomplishment you get from academic success but would also wish for like-minded friends whom I can constantly strive to be better with!

As a final message, I’d like to say that it has been an incredible journey with you all, I wish everyone the best of luck with your future endeavors. I would not be who I am today without you and I cannot say how truly grateful I am for all your help, support, and kindness. It has been such an unusual year and although I am disappointed with this hasty goodbye, I feel grateful to have shared this experience with all of you.

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Photos: Caitlin Y., Unsplash

This year, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down, and for high school seniors, these students experienced a senior year unlike any we’ve ever seen before. But life goes on, and despite the chaos COVID-19 has caused, students at international schools all over Beijing are graduating in good spirits and high hopes for the future. Congratulations to the Class of 2020!

Meet Jin L. from Seoul, South Korea, a recent graduate from Western Academy of Beijing (WAB).

Jin L

I’ll be attending Northeastern University in Boston, this fall majoring in Communication Studies.

Northwestern University

My favorite memory from high school wasn’t a specific day or a single event. I think it was just my whole experience of playing on the varsity volleyball team for the past three years. I’ve been playing volleyball at WAB since I was in Grade 5 and I think what made high school a lot more tolerable for me was knowing that after school I’d have volleyball training. I loved being able to play volleyball with other people who also shared my passion for this sport. This sport has created such a strong community for me at WAB and also other international schools. I believe playing volleyball has become such a huge part of my high school experience. I feel like playing volleyball has allowed me to be more confident, optimistic, encouraging, and cooperative and every time I was on the court, I felt like I could truly express myself.

I think WAB helped shape who I am today. It’s such an open-minded and welcoming community filled with students and teachers who are so caring and supportive of each other. WAB encourages every student to follow their passion and be who they are and this has allowed me to grow to be a confident person. As a student who has studied at WAB for over 10 years, I feel that I have grown up in this community and the constant support from people around me has really helped me be more confident in whatever I’m doing and cherish the people around me.

The best study strategy I learned at WAB was to stay active and to keep a consistent routine. I went into high school thinking the only thing I needed to focus on was my academics because I thought joining a bunch of extracurricular activities was a distraction and a waste of time. However, after joining the volleyball and softball varsity team and a couple of different extracurricular activities like awareness clubs, I realized that a huge reason why I was so on top of getting work done was that I was so involved in extracurricular activities. Playing sports and participating in club activities has kept my mind busy and didn’t leave much space for me to procrastinate which kept me organized and on top of all my work. I think this will help me succeed in college since it is so easy to get lazy with a lot of free time in your hands.

Deciding on one favorite teacher is a hard question because I love most of the teachers I’ve had in the past few years. If I had to choose, I think my favorite teacher is my IB math teacher, Ms. van Petersen. She taught me for the last 2 years of high school and in 8th grade. She is a teacher I believe who really cares about her students’ wellbeing and she works hard to make sure that every one of her students succeeds. Although math wasn’t the most enjoyable course in IB, being in her math class made me feel comfortable and happy. While she was very serious about our work and made sure we were always on top of our work, she was also patient and caring. She would volunteer to come to school on the weekends or holidays to help us because she wanted to make sure none of her students were falling behind.

If I could’ve changed one thing about my high school experience it would be to spend more time with my friends. Since the global pandemic and being stuck outside Beijing for almost five months, this has made me reflect a lot on my high school experience. I spent so much of my school year worried about keeping up with my academics and extracurricular that I forgot to cherish my time with my friends especially during my last year of high school.

When it comes to whether friendship is more important or academic success, everyone values different things in life, but for me personally, I think building strong friendships is a lot more important than academic success. Obviously every student’s goal is to get good grades and go to a good college but when I think about the future and how I can be successful, I think strong friendships are more important in life. Reflecting back on the most difficult 2 years of high school (11th and 12th grade), I realized that the only thing that kept motivating me to keep going even when I was hanging by a thread was my friends. My friends and I have gotten through so much together, finishing the extended essay, IAs, and just a bunch of assessments, and I think the reason why we got through it was that we constantly pushed each other to keep going. There were countless times I’d cry from frustration, be so sleep deprived I couldn’t think straight or be on the verge of giving up but my friends stuck by my side the entire time and I value this sort of strong friendship over any other kind of success. Although I would never want to experience the stress of IB anymore, I think one of my best memories from high school were staying in the library at WAB late at night with my friends trying to get an assignment done.

My parting message to the WAB community would be starting the new years with my best friends and telling them how this was our year because we were finally graduating. Obviously this global pandemic has put an end to our fantasies of finally walking across the graduation stage, going to Thailand for senior trip, or going to Houhai for senior ditch day. It has truly been upsetting that I could not say goodbye and thank everyone who has been a part of my journey for the last 15 years in Beijing. I want to let everyone in my graduating class know that although this was not how we envisioned our senior year ending, I am sure that good things will come out of this in the near future and I cannot wait to see all the successful things each and every one of you will do! We are lucky that WAB is such a close-knit community so I am positive that we will all stay in contact and continue to celebrate each other’s happiness and success.

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Photos: Jin L., northwestern.edu