Wow, it’s crazy that my last year at AdVENTURE has come to an end. It has been one crazy ride here at AdVENTURE and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Now, if you’re thinking about attending this STEM-based school, just know that it isn’t a piece of cake. Our teachers are very strict about turning in good quality work on time. If you fail to turn in your work on time, it’ll result in a zero and that zero will not go away. As a student who has attended aDVENTURE for three years, I survived by having lots of dedication and learning how to manage my stress. Often, we get lots of work assigned by every teacher and that really puts lots of pressure and stress on us as students. It may be hard to believe, but I’m actually very thankful for all those assignments and all that stress being put on me, for it benefited instead of hurt me. When my teachers put lots of stress and pressure on me, it taught me how to manage my time accordingly. I learned what my priorities should be and it made me mature. Many of my friends who have not attended aDVENTURE would freak out if they had one essay due in one week, while I can finish one in three days. In a way, we get trained to handle pressure so that when we get into high school and college, we know how to handle what’s given to us.

 

Friendship and family is a big part of this school. Since we are with the same group of kids from 5-8 grade, we grow very close. We have our little inside jokes, and we’re always having a good time with each other. Now as the 8th-grade class, we’re the closest to the teachers because we’ve been with them the longest. We have our jokes with the teachers and we always enjoy our class with our teachers, especially Ms. Garcia, Ms. McMillan, and Ms. Hogen-Esch. These three teachers are a big part of Adventure, Also I feel like the class enjoys their classes a lot. We get lots and lots of work and like our family, our classmates help us out. The Adventure class of ‘18 actually has multiple group chats over social media's like Instagram and google hangouts. Some group chats have ‘ Homework Help’ where we ask questions about our homework and other group chats similar to that. These group chats and my friends in my class were really a big part of me graduating. The smallest things made a big difference and they gave me great ideas about my projects, etc. They were definitely one of the reasons I survived Adventure.

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My eighth-grade year here at Adventure has actually been the hardest one out of the three. My sixth-grade year wasn’t as easy at first, but it got better. By seventh grade, Adventure was a piece of cake! I was so used to the teachers and the way they teach that I was feeling pretty confident in the work I’ve submitted. Then came along eighth grade and so did the new teachers. Now, since I was so used to my old teachers, I was pretty surprised by the way that these new teachers did things. All the Adventure classes were used to a specific way of teaching, but now that these new teachers came, everyone was pretty confused! That’s why I wish that if I could go back to the beginning of the year so that I can prepare for what the teachers were going to do. I would’ve done more Math and Language Arts practices so that I can refresh and remember everything I learned from my previous teachers. This year was one of my favorites because it pushed me to the limit. The new teachers taught me in different ways but it benefited me. It prepared me for what I was going to be doing in high school, which will come in handy.
 

I wouldn’t really call Adventure hard, but I also wouldn’t call it easy. Adventure is really just a mix of both easy and hard. At times it’s very very hard and at times it’s very very easy. One of the hardest things at Adventure is having lots of projects and assignments at once. It really adds lots of pressure on the students here at adventure. It’s like our mind never stops thinking. We think when we sleep, when we wake up, when we do anything really. When we have many assignments/projects, the easiest part is having access to homework and other assignments. We get lots of time to work on our assignments and projects because we work on them at school and then we go home and work on them. This releases pressure off of me and makes it so that I put lots of work and dedication into my assignments. At times, the teachers are nice enough to give us extra time by extending the deadline to midnight instead of when the school day ends, this gives us more time to work on our projects/assignments.

 

Adventure teachers are such great teachers that they are very rare. They’re such helpful and smart people and are very, very good teachers. There wasn’t much that these teachers couldn’t do, they’ve done everything. One thing that I wish one of the teachers could’ve done, which made our assignments a little more helpful. This teacher really depended on the computers and it’s websites to teach us more than that teacher teaching us. We often did lots of paperwork and lots of reading instead of a one on one learning experience with our teacher. This was the first time that this teacher taught me. She’s taught my sister before, but never the 8th-grade class. It was definitely something to adjust to, but we did it anyways! But at the end of the year, this year was definitely one that I will never forget and will forever cherish.