Suddenly Southern

by Brennan McCoy

Read to find out what Southern regional is like from an outside perspective!

For most people, Southern has been all they have known. Going from kindergarten to grade 12, Southern or even the surrounding elementaries, everyone ends up at Southern Regional. So having been in the district for a long time, you might think of Southern as just another high school, but it truly is unique. For me, I went to an elementary school where my 8th grade class graduated with 17 kids, and my siblings’ class years earlier had 24 kids, which was the biggest graduating class the school had seen in a while. Coming down to these districts and even just seeing the size of the schools, you can just tell how big of a population the school has.

The high school down here is a completely different story in itself. My old high school was Pope John XXIII, a small private Catholic school. My freshmen year, the class size was about 130 kids, and the next year we dropped to about 95 kids. Transferring from there to one of the biggest high schools in New Jersey was definitely an experience. In total, Pope John had 667 students, here there are 1,947, which is almost tripled. Not only is the student population here bigger, but everything is. The classrooms, hallways, cafeteria, auditorium, you name it, it’s bigger.

Talking about my personal experience, on the first day I was nervous despite having been to the school over the summer many times. The biggest difference from being here in the summer to the first day of school was the hallways. The amount of people that flooded the halls was something I was not expecting or prepared for. Before coming here, I knew the size of the school and how many students were attending and it didn’t matter to me, I liked it was a bigger school since it’s something I’ve never experienced before. On the first day though, when the first bell rang and I got to see all the students for the first time, I was taken back. It took time to get used to everything new, but eventually it worked out and became easier and easier as time went on.

Southern by far has given me a better high school experience than my previous school. The amount of activities and extracurriculars offered here are unmatched. Southern offers thirty-five clubs and that’s not even including athletics. Most schools would probably entertain the idea of ten to fifteen clubs, but thirty-five is no small feat. Having a lot to offer students allows them the chance to explore a different side to themselves which is great. The biggest problem I had with my last school was that I felt unprepared, nervous, and scared for my future. The reason being, nothing was offered to students. Pope John had maybe eleven clubs and barely any extracurriculars for students to explore different areas of study, which is why I felt unready. Already at Southern, I’ve had the opportunity to sign up for all these clubs and explore fields of study I never would have thought of.

Heading into senior year, I’m really looking forward to even more opportunities to explore. I have to start setting up my future and getting everything in line for these next few years and I’m proud that I get to follow through with that at Southern Regional where I have an endless amount of resources.