Picture a huge lecture hall filled with over fifty students left and right. The woman next to you is doing her make up, the guy in front of you is on Facebook and the person next to you is sleeping. Being surrounded by college students may seem scary to the average student, but to a senior at Townsend Harris, it is the norm.
Attending a lecture and a college class or two at Queens College is a typical routine for a senior, but most of the college students themselves are unaware about the presence of high school teenagers in their school. Few are concerned with the presence of THHS students while some do not have time to be concerned. The seniors in THHS have mixed emotions on taking undergraduate classes at Queens College; some find it a great opportunity while others could simply care less.
Freshman Jonathan Parecki, former THHS student, attends Macaulay Honors at Queens College. He spoke about the differences from his former high school and his present college life. Aware that Queens College is more of a commuter school he said, “a lot of [the students] have jobs and other things to do so students don’t have much time to make friends outside of their class.”
Queens College junior Bryant Aracena is one of the few who are aware that there is a high school on the QC campus.
“They’re on campus all the time, they actually play pool in our pool hall too,” he says, showing that he does not mind seniors using the campus and its facilities.
Bryant continued, “No, complaints, they’re high school kids you know? I mean some kids are immature but we’ve all been like that at some point.”
One QC freshman did have complaints about the high school students of THHS. “They’re annoying and they think they know everything.” She sees them at the Powdermaker building and the Science building.“Thankfully I do not see them when I go to my other classes on the campus,” she adds.
Another Junior QC student said, “I’ve seen them [THHS students] around but there is no contact… this is a commuter school so there’s no social life. So I have no complaints about them using the campus.”
This seemed to characterize much of the responses.
With Queens College being the type of school it is, many students were more likely to view THHS students as just another set of commuters.
