Hi, People of Earth!
I'm an eighteen year old black girl from Atlanta who went to an all-girls' boarding high school in Stevenson, Maryland. In less than a month I'll be starting school at Salem College, a small women's college in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. So, as an introduction into the world of Odyssey, I'm comparing the two with a few major categories.
1. All Women, all the time?
Firstly, though, there are a few caveats. My boarding school. The magical St. Timothy's School always hovered around two hundred students at any given time, whereas Salem College has, to the best of my knowledge, around a thousand undergraduate students. Secondly, as I stated before, both institutions are all-female in terms of students, though students from Wake Forest University are welcome to cross-register in courses at Salem College and vice-versa. (This option does allow for more frequent interactions with guys in academic settings, however.) That's all for prefacing information.
2. Head's Days are rare at boarding schools.
Head's Days, for those of you don't know, are a wonderful privilege where classes are suspended -- given that they were in session during most federal holidays. At St. Timothy’s it was with the intent that seniors, who were college bound International Baccalaureate Diploma candidates, could get caught up on those requirements and college applications. There is less of a need for an equivalent to Head's Days in college because students are in control of their own schedules, including when they feel able to attend class and actively participate. There are also plenty of places students can receive academic help if they're overwhelmed, like writing centers, tutors and professors' office hours.
"Salem has a few break sessions scattered throughout the year... Besides breaks and holidays, however, there are two other days when classes are suspended. The first is Fall Fest, which is basically a campus wide contest. Each class decorates a section of the [dining hall], writes a series of skits, and we have a parade early in the morning. The second is the Celebration of Academic Excellence... [Which] occurs in the spring semester. Seniors present their graduation theses and projects to underclassmen and staff... Both of these events are so much fun and absolutely amazing to attend! Fall Fest is so representative of Salem's school spirit... and the Celebration of Academic Excellence is an amazing expression of Salem's student body and our thirst for knowledge." - Sam Thurman C'19
3. Snow days are even rarer in Maryland, where it's winter from November through mid-March.
To give you an accurate example of that, I should mention that in the winter of 2013, St. Timothy's was one of the only schools open. The rest were other boarding institutions and colleges. In the state of Maryland after we received too much snow to make driving viable for day students. Over a million students got the day off although we had gotten the day before off so back to class we went. In short it's very difficult to skip class without a doctor's note when 90 percent of faculty live on campus too. Colleges meanwhile are much more liberal in their granting of snow days given that not all or even most in some cases, faculty or students live on campus.
4. You live independently.
By having to live independently of your parents before age eighteen, you develop some crucial life skills. You learn how to budget the limited money you have rather than spending recklessly every weekend. You learn how to do your own laundry, even if there is a learning curve. You learn the importance of being neat and organized in your room when you have the consequences of losing important work in the melee or the threat of a detention hangs over your head. You learn the importance of networking whenever possible by making friends out of those around you. You get to experience different cultural events like the ballet, state department and opera, all of which exponentially broadens your perspective. The opportunity to network with the people who gave you the opportunity and making their acquaintance, as they are oftentimes present at said events, can also help you greatly throughout life.
In a boarding school setting you are supervised most of the time, so spontaneity, like leaving to grab Starbucks with friends on a Friday morning, is not possible. You have to sign out to leave the grounds. You can't leave campus just for a coffee run at 10 am even if you're not in class. That's, of course, not the case in college. Yes, you should attend class if you have one at 10 am, but as Salem Senior Kerri Hughes put it, "If you don't want to go to class and want to drive to the mountains for a day of hiking, no one's going to stop you."
