My first year of Encounters started in the 7th grade. Many of my friends had already been in Encounters a year before me so I felt very lost and left out since everything was very new to me. My first few days were very plain, we started by writing essays in ThinkCerca which as the lazy person I was, I was not very fond of it. As we went on I started making more friends and even getting to know my teacher better.

One of our first minor projects that was one of my personal favorites was ojo de dios (god's eye) where we took 2 popsicle sticks and wrapped them in yarn. Of course while we wrote research papers and plenty of essays, it was always fun. It wasn't always about working, we went on multiple trips! My personal favorite was the renaissance fair and some certain trips we would make every other friday (fine arts fridays) where we would go to a college by our district and watch some instrumentalists play a couple of tunes for us.

During those trips, it helped me bond with new students and be able to make new friends to spend time working with 24/7.

Since I wasn't able to attend Encounters in 6th grade I never had to leave for Cobb so when I first joined in 7th grade, it was refreshing knowing I didn't have to leave the school every week like the kids last year.Even though we did projects every now and then, we spent most of our time writing a certain research paper based on an important person. For my paper, I wrote about the creators of Mcdonalds and the history of how it all started. Along with my research paper we got to design a car based on our project/ subject of our paper. Sadly due to covid, no one was able to finish our cars which was very upsetting. But it wasn't always about working, we went on multiple trips! My personal favorite was the renaissance fair!!

Even though our year was cut short I was still able to make friends and become apart of a program that i've always wanted to be in, and to get the opportunity to do so is quite extraordinary. Even though we have some limitations due to covid, for my 8th grade year I can finally have a year to work with others in Encounters again.