As a self-proclaimed "class clown", Sidney was always able to make her classmates laugh, but she wasn't making real connections. Sidney also loves an adventure, so she jumped at the opportunity to move across the country to attend a boarding school. One of Sidney's goals was to make real, honest connections with friends. She wanted an environment where others could get to know and value who she really is.
“In middle school, I was always the class clown,” says Sidney. “But I wasn’t making any deep connections with my friends, they just saw me as someone that makes them laugh.” In sixth grade, Sidney sat down with her mom and talked about attending a boarding school. “I said, ‘that’s an amazing idea!’, I’ve always been up for an adventure!” After traveling across the country to tour CH-CH, it was the welcoming, home-like feel of the campus that let her know this was the place. In her two years as a boarding student, Sidney has found the real connections she was looking for. “Boarding lets you see people in the most real way,” says Sidney. “It shows me that it’s okay to express myself in how I am. I don’t always have to be that girl who’s always on top of everything. I can just be myself.”
Transcribed From Sidney's Video:
In middle school and elementary school, I was always the class clown. My name is Sidney and I'm from Southern California. I feel like the friends that I did have didn't really understand me that much, I was just funny to them, and I definitely wanted to make a stronger bond with them. I was in about six grade when I decided I wanted to go to a boarding school, and it was mostly because I wanted to experience new things, and I wanted to meet new people, and experience different cultures, and when I came it was snowing. That was a little new for me, I was like, “Wow, is it going to be snowing like this in winter? I get to see snow?”
Just the feeling that I got while I was at the school was what really made me say, “Hey, I have to come here.” Because a lot of other schools, you're not going to get that. You're not going to get the feeling of family that you do here. I did not just come here because the people were nice, I came here so that I would be prepared for the future, so that I would be prepared to do whatever I wanted to do in college and be whatever I wanted to be, and this was an amazing opportunity for me to make that real.
Boarding at Chapel Hill-Chauncy Hall has been amazing. The friends that I have made here, I know how people say, “Oh, college is when you're going to make all your friends,” this is probably going to be life long relationships. We're together all the time, I have my own roommate, and it's preparing me for college and I also get to see people in the most real way, and that's very different then what it was in middle school and elementary school. They didn't see me when I went home, they didn't see me when I was sad, they didn't see me when I was feeling different types of emotions. They saw me only at school when I was being funny in class, or when I was trying to do my work.
Being here really helped me make good connections with people, and stronger bonds, and I made real friends.