What was your high school like?, In terms of cliques and such Options

[mipadi]

Growing up, I always saw TV shows portraying high school in an atmosphere in which the jocks and cheerleaders were "cool" and the smart, geeky, or creative kids were basically losers. But looking back, my high school experience was completely different. The athletes and cheerleaders were mediocre, I guess you could say; they weren't losers, but they weren't anything special. The smartest kids in the school, the ones at the top of their class, were the most well-liked (I guess you could say "popular") students. My school had a sort of hierarchy of popularity: if you were a good artist, you were pretty much automatically cool. If you were a musician, you were pretty popular, too. If you were a writer, you were pretty well-liked. If you were at least into indie films or indie rock or art or something like that, you were pretty well-liked, too.

I went to college thinking this was perfectly normal, that the TV depiction of "coolness" was a relic of previous generations -- basically, that the writers of those shows were basing their writing off of their experiences, which didn't reflect contemporary culture well. But then I talked to people in college, and found that my high school seemed to be pretty unique. Most of my college friends had more stereotypical experiences in high school. And when I thought about it, this coincided with my own second-hand experiences. My friend Chris was an intelligent, intellectual, if somewhat eccentric, kid who was pretty popular in my high school. In 10th grade, he moved out to Pittsburgh with his dad (his mom didn't move right away because she was a doctor and had work commitments for a few more months). At his new school, he was routinely made fun of by the athletes (the "cool kids" of that school), and even beat up on a few occasions. Now, again, he was a bit "weird", but his creativity was appreciated at our school, and not only was he never assaulted, but he was well-liked. He hated his new schools so much that after a month or so he moved back with his mom.

What's your school like? Was/is it like mine, or was/is it like the more stereotypical, pop-culture view of high school ("as seen on TV!"), or is it something else entirely?

[transcendentalis...]

My class had 1,361 people.

Academically competitive as hellllll. Over-the-top school spirit, with days that had the entire campus flooded with maroon.

There were the athletes - sports of all kinds, including cheerleading and drill team. Former athletes were there often too. That group always hung out under the "bridge" between the library and the second story of the two academic buildings, but closer to the west of the enormous bridge there were two small gardens, one dedicated to the memories of students who had passed away and the other full of rock art and small trees. A mural separated the two from the class of 2007. ROTC kids stuck pretty much only with their own crew - they weren't ranked particularly highly on the social ladder.

The richer black kids and hispanic kids always hung out around the gardens. They were always relatively friendly and nice to talk to... most people under the bridge were. The others hung out behind the cafeteria near the teacher's parking lot and the ramp that connected the two vertical levels of the school. It wasn't often that people branched out to them, though they weren't particularly mean either. Those were the kids that got into fights the most often, but we didn't have many at this school.

In the cafeteria there were just the "miscellaneous" kids... kids who didn't really have large groups. Just your average, noncompetitive students. There weren't many, usually. Occasionally people who didn't want to go off campus for a close talk with someone else would go in there.

Library was always full of kids, usually socializing more than studying. There was quiet zone that would always have one or two kids working, but mostly everyone crowded around tables in the middle just talking or working on things together. This was the academic crowd, which often bled into the infamous D building/fine arts family.

People didn't pick on each other. They really didn't... Our class president was a Korean football player who stayed mainly in the crowd under the bridge, and then the school celebrities were either under the bridge or in D building. We got along, despite the differences. Popular kids were people with talent and charisma, not just athletes. Yeah, there were always the 'strange' kids that most were a bit wary to approach, but there were so many places to fit in within such a large school that it was difficult to really be completely alone.



it was really weird writing this