In a typical Chinese class, almost all of the students will be Chinese. But freshman Neel Bedekar is not the typical student who takes Chinese—he is Indian.
Bedekar has been learning Chinese for the past five years from a private tutor. He is currently in Chinese 3.
“I wanted to broaden my horizons and learn a new language,” Bedekar said. “Chinese is really unique and different from a lot of other languages.
Not only is he proficient in Mandarin, but he is also one of the few freshmen that is taking AP Computer Science, learning the language of technology.
“I’ve always liked programming. I think it is really interesting and useful,” Bedekar said.
Despite the fact that Bedekar is taking rigorous classes, he does not feel that the transition to high school has been hard.
“Last year, I had pretty hard teachers, so my workload isn’t much more than then,” he said. “My core teacher [at Redwood] gave a lot of homework.”
Jackie An
Some students find math to be a tough subject, but freshman Jackie An does not have this problem. She is currently taking Trig/Precalculus Honors.
“I wanted to get ahead in math and I figured it would give me an easier time my junior year with all the other APs I’ll have to take,” An said.
Although An is comfortable in her math class now, she was initially hesitant about the 95-minute periods.
“A big difference from last year would probably be the block schedule. I was expecting [the classes] to be boring since they are really long, but they go by faster than I thought they would,” An said.
Since An attended Harker Middle School, she had to adjust to the large increase in students.
“At first, it was kind of overwhelming since Harker had half as many people in each grade,” An said. “But overall, the transition was pretty easy, since it’s not really that different from middle school.”
After An was able to settle into high school life, she began to enjoy the perks of high school.
“We get more independence than we did in middle school, so that’s really nice,” An said. “I’m looking forward to the rest of high school.”
