Class of 2020: “The Year Has Been a Weird One…”

This year, COVID-19 has turned the world upside down, and for high school seniors, these students experienced a senior year unlike any we’ve ever seen before. But life goes on and despite the chaos, COVID-19 has caused, students at international schools all over Beijing are graduating in good spirits and high hopes for the future. Congratulations to the Class of 2020!

Meet Anya H,  a British-Chinese high school senior graduating from Beijing International Bilingual Academy (BIBA).

I don’t really have a single favorite memory from high school,  I have many fond memories like coming up with inside jokes, sports trips, bike rides on school trips.

I believe everything in my life has played a role in shaping who am I today, and my school allowed me to come into contact with more cultures and perspectives and allowed me to embrace my identity as both a mixed-race child and a global citizen. It also allowed me to develop both logical and thorough ways of thinking, and innovative, creative ways of tackling problems as well as critical thinking skills.

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I will be going to college in the UK, possibly at the University of Manchester and I will be studying Biochemistry.

Planning ahead, setting deadlines, and being able to stick to them were some of the strategies I learned in high school that I feel will help me succeed in college. I was also able to learn to deal with pressure and balance different aspects of my life, for example, after studying for a couple of hours, going outside and kicking a ball around. Those kinds of things just let you think outside the box and detach from your little bubble for a while and focus on other things.

I know this isn’t going to sound true, but I genuinely did not have a favorite teacher, all of my teachers played different roles in my life and I had different yet equally good connections with many of them. If I had to name a favorite teacher there would be a list of over ten!

If I could change one thing about my high school experience, it would be to try not to focus as much on grades. I placed a lot of weight on the grades I got and they were a large part of my identity, as such, grades affected me a lot, definitely in a somewhat unhealthy way. So yeah, if possible, I would try and detach myself from my grades a bit more.
Is academic success more important than building strong friendships? I would honestly say the two come hand in hand. My friends played a big role in my academic success, we were able to support each other through the IB program and help each other when needed. These experiences, in turn, led to building strong friendships. If I were to say focus on one before the other, I would say build strong friendships first and then work towards a common goal together to reach academic success.

As a final message to my school I’d like to say that the 2019-2020 year has been a really weird one, but, thanks to you lot, I was used to weird already.

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Photos: Anya H

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