Lauren & Elaina

Lauren & Elaina

Egypt. Zombies. Kent.

Elaina and I came to Kent for the flexibility. There are so many great subjects here; you can choose what you want and you don't have to wait for a specific grade to take a class. There are accelerated, honors and AP courses and you can even create your own independent study courses. So, whatever you want academically, it's here.

For me, the theology classes were incredible. We started with the problem of evil, which was really interesting and not something we would ever talk about in my school back home in Jamaica. Actually the whole class is discussion based, which is completely, completely different than what I'm used to. And in Theology and Literature, I basically got credit for doing things I love - reading books I like and then writing and talking about them. We also watched great movies and analyzed those too.

And there are really great opportunities outside regular classes too. Elaina got a grant to go to Egypt with her teacher and two other members of her art history class. They visited Alexandria, Giza, and Cairo and did drawings and paintings of what they saw. The artwork will be made into a book, which is on reserve in the library. Her favorite is a white pencil drawing based on a woodcut of Saint George slaying the dragon that she saw in a Coptic church. (No surprises there! Elaina loves dragons.)

Even our jobs at Kent helped us learn about things we were interested in. We both work in the Tech Center, so we help other students with their computer questions and problems. We love it, everything about it. When the work's done there, we hang out with the technicians, watch movies, eat pizza, have intense conversations. Last week we got into a discussion of what the best weapon would be if you were attacked by zombies. It was typical Tech Center fare and there just seemed no limit to the ideas we came up with. And of course we discussed it forever. But that could be the sci-fi analogy for Kent: realizing you have a gazillion different options, and then having fun checking them all out.