By Zoe ’26
Coming to a new school is difficult. Leaving your friends, not knowing anybody, and overall just being in a new environment is hard. I came to HW knowing almost nobody. To tell you the truth: I didn’t really look forward to it. But trust me, you have to look past being nervous. You just have to remember this: everybody is going through the same thing. Everybody is trying to make new friends. Everybody is figuring out their schedule.
A challenge for students, especially online, is making new friends. Here’s my strategy: put yourself out there! However nervous you are, you’ll always feel better if you just say hi. The worst that can happen is that you misspell their name in an email! And what are the chances that’s going to happen with autocorrect around?! You can never come at things with the mindset that you’re going to fail. Now, I can’t guarantee this will be easy, but I assure you, you’ll feel better at school once you get to meet some new people. I was so nervous to make new friends, and how I would get the courage to do it. But once I saw some of the kids on the first day, I really understood for the first time, that everybody really was in the same boat. Of course, my parents had reminded me regularly, but sometimes you don’t truly believe something until you experience it. In some strange way, it comforted me, knowing that people were just as scared as I was. I was super nervous (even though I just had to click on a link). Every time I try to email a person I start shaking, so I typed “Hey nuve to mrrt yiu” instead of “ Hey nice to meet you”. But I kept in mind that everybody’s new. Everybody’s nervous. Everybody wants to make some new friends.
And who knows? Maybe you’ll talk about them being your best friend in a couple years. I know this pandemic and the unusual circumstances we’re in are quite upsetting, but everything is an opportunity to learn. So use this as one. “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain” – Dolly Parton.
