PREFECT

By Jade H arris and H annah Shahidi

Head Prefect Simon Lee ’23 was on edge. With thousands of his peers’ eyes xated on him, he was about to give the speech that would determine his long-held dream of becoming Head Prefect. After giving his speech, Lee heard the cheers of his classmates as he walked away from the podium. Days later, when Lee learned that he was elected as Head Prefect, he said he was both overjoyed and anxious to assume this position.

“I was super nervous about it,” Lee said. “I guess it was exciting because it was something I had wanted for a while, but also, election season for people who run can be super stressful, and it places a lot of strain on relationships. While I’m lucky enough that it didn’t do that to any of my friendships, there was also kind of a worry that getting this job would kind of lead to compromising some of the relationships that I cared about.” sure myself, and I think a lot of other people do this is, [is that] the fact that people are stressed about it is ultimately a manifestation of the fact that they care about Prefect Council.”

Prefect Council comprises of four Prefects from each grade and two additional Head Prefects that oversee the group, all of whom are elected by the student body. Junior Prefect Nyla Shelton ’24, who has been elected Prefect for the past two years, said she feels anxious during elections because she cares a lot about the positions she runs for.

Shelton ’24

Two rounds of Head Prefect elections take place every spring. After hearing speeches from candidates in the preliminary round, the junior class votes on four students to advance to a second round, where sophomores and juniors vote on two Head Prefects. Lee said he’s worried for candidates who are running for the position.

“I’m going to be real, election season is really rough,” Lee said. “And I worry for the Junior Prefects this year and anyone else who’s running. Ultimately, what I always think to reas -

“I’m right in the midst of election season, so that is denitely a big source of stress,” Shelton said. “If I’m completely honest, I think elections, obviously, are inherently stressful, just given the fact that you are speaking for a lot of people. And you do want to put your best foot forward for a position that you really care about, just like with any leadership position that you’re really wanting.”

Shelton said she spends signicant amounts of her time writing her candidate statements and preparing for other aspects of the election.

“I think I spent at least 10 hours just on all my candidate statements,” Shelton said. “Probably a total [of] 15 hours. It’ll be more by the time that elections actually happen. I guess that includes thinking about it. I wouldn’t say I was on my Google Doc for 15 hours, obviously. But I’ve de nitely spent a while thinking about it and thinking about ideas.”

Prefect Council is tasked with organizing annual school events such as Homecoming and Prom, but they also set up coffeehouses, food trucks, discount partners and tournaments throughout the year, according to Sophomore Prefect Eric Lee ’23. In addition, Prefect Council also serves as a communication line between the administration and student body, advocating for new initiatives and policy change. Shelton said she is anxious when Prefect Council projects do not work out as planned because the Council is meant to help the student body.

“I can get stressed if an initiative isn’t working out the way I’d hoped or an event is moving slowly or vendors are not getting back to me,” Shelton said. “Especially because I really take to heart the feedback that we get about these events, and if we’re not carrying out the Council’s tasks in ways that make the students’ lives better or improve the wellness of the student body, it affects me a lot negatively, to be honest.”

Head Prefect Yoshi Kimura ’23 said she cares a lot about her role on Prefect Council, and it has forced her to develop methods to deal with stress surrounding Prefect Council elections.

“I can’t control what somebody thinks, and I don’t know if I’m what’s best for the student body,” Kimura said. “But I should believe in the system that’s been created, I should believe in the support of the people who have supported me thus far. And so reducing that stress is really important during [elections]. That being said, I was sleep deprived and I was hungry. But at the end of the day, there’s nothing but love from everyone in the community, even the people you run against.”

Former Head Prefect Quincey Dern ’22 said she spent several hours every day working on Prefect Council initiatives.

“I spent so much time on Prefect Council, and it’s not an exaggeration,” Dern said. “Truly, I was working on something Prefect Council related every single day, including the weekends. I remember speci cally, over quarantine, when we were organizing the days for kids to be brought back into social distance groups, we were trying to gure out how we should put groups together, and I remember doing that on the phone with my fellow prefects until at least 3 a.m.”

Kimura said there is a signicant time commitment to being on Prefect Council, but it’s enjoyable because of her passion and dedication to being Head Prefect.

“You know, [Lee will] call me at 12:30 at night with this idea, and I’ll be like, alright,” Kimura said. “It’s a little time here and there. But, when you’re really passionate about the things you’re putting on, it doesn’t feel like work or too much of a commitment to you know, keep talking about it. But, it is a pretty hefty amount of time,” Kimura said.

Head of School Rick Commons said Prefect Council works closely with the administration to work on issues that students face. Commons said he nds the personal and professional connections valuable.

“I think of the Head Prefects as an important source of representative student government where I can understand from people who have been elected by the student body, how the student body is likely to react to a decision, or what the student body might like to see,” Commons said. “And so I enjoy my relationship with, for instance, [Lee] and [Kimura]. I have a great relationship with both of them and enjoy casual conversations, but will often ask them for their opinions, and they will often come to me with ideas. e whole Prefect Council will come to me with ideas, and it’s a part of my job that I love.”

Former Head Prefect Jonathan Cosgrove ’21 said he thinks fondly of his time on Prefect Council during his time at the school. He said he was able to meet many of his classmates and become more social through planning events for Prefect Council.

“[Prefect Council] forced me to become a more social and extroverted person and to make sure that I was always talking to everyone and getting to know everyone in my grade,” Cosgrove said. “I really love being a Prefect because by the end of Harvard-Westlake, I really knew every kid in my grade and every student pretty well, and I think that’s a really special thing that I gained—being able to know all 285 kids that were in my grade and being able to know them personally.”

Patrice* said she doesn’t see any results from work that Prefect Council does.

“I’ve never thought of running because it just feels like more about party planning than just actually making change on campus,” Patrice said. “I feel like nothing drastic has changed the school since I’ve been here. It seems like [Prefect Council] sets themselves really low bars intentionally so that they can say they did something like bringing in a food truck. But I feel like more meaningful change would be like looking at curriculum and homework policy and getting us more late starts. Everyone always talks about the golden age [of Prefect Council], I prefer [the] council when they were writing the honor code and setting up the honor board.”

Patrice said people who run for Prefect Council have ulterior motives behind their interest in being elected.

“I’ve heard from people that they have no legitimate interest in being Prefect,” Patrice said. “It’s just something their parents want them to do, or it’s just something they’re doing for [college applications].”

*Name has been changed

By Ella Yadegar

At 10:45 p.m. on a Saturday, Willow* ’24 and her friends approached the entrance to a bar. ey nervously crossed their arms over their dresses as they joined the line to get inside. Once they reached the door, Willow looked inside the pulsing club, attempting to avoid eye contact with the security guard. Willow said the towering bouncer quickly glanced at them and motioned them inside, never asking to see the fake IDs they had all bought just a month ago.

“Most of the time they check your fake ID and still let you in anyway,” Willow said. “ ey don’t really examine it, unless you’re a guy and they ask you your birthday or where you’re from or your address. Once you go into the bar, you can just tell it’s lled with high school kids drinking and dancing. Last week, they weren’t even checking IDs.”

An anonymous reviewer on Yelp said the bar Willow was referring to has a tendency to let in underage people.

“I think it’s worth pointing out that I rst heard of [the bar] when it opened from my 17-year-old sister who knew about it because it was (and still is) known around L.A. private schools as the place that is really lax on fake IDs,” the reviewer said.

Candace* ’24 said most of her friends order fake IDs to use them to enter bars and nightclubs.

“Every person I know has a fake ID, and multiple too, like one from a di erent state and one from California,” Candace said. “And they’re out Friday and Saturday. Bars are just an excuse for Harvard-Westlake kids to see other kids they wouldn’t even interact with on a school basis and then hook up with them.”

Candace said even without proper identi cation, these bars are likely to let in minors who have previously bought a table or paid the bouncer at the door.

bars and nightclubs using fake IDs.

“I’m walking in sophomore year,” Candace said. “I’m using my sister’s fake ID, so it says I’m already 23, I have blue eyes, I’m blonde, I’m vefour, which I am not. My friend and I were newly 16, and we were with a group of 19-year-olds. ey won’t even look at us. ey literally go ‘turn around, you’re underage.’ [My friend] asked the valet to get in and eventually the manager was like ‘oh it’s ne, you guys can come in because you’re with a private event.’ Some guy comes in, another 19-year-old boy, and [the security guard] is like, ‘I know this is fake but you’re chill, you can go in.’”

Candace said her rst time attending the speci c bar was distracting from her school life.

“I was like ‘why am I here?’” Candace said. “I had a full on math quiz the next day but I couldn’t really care less.”

Willow said few people are now willing to take on the responsibility of hosting a party at their house.

“People have started to think that they can just go to one of these bars instead of hosting parties because they’re seeing the same group of kids that they would see at high school parties anyway,” Willow said. “All of the kids from other schools like Windward, Brentwood, Crossroads, Notre Dame, etc. who are at the clubs would already be at the Harvard-Westlake parties to begin with. Going to bars is less of a liability than parties because you’re only responsible for your own self.”

Ahren Bhatia ’24 said when he recently hosted a party at his house, the attendees caused expensive damage.

“People threw trash and towels in the toilet and broke the pipes which caused a water leak,” Bhatia said. “ en, they destroyed the fence around the garden along with a bunch of fruit trees and plants. Someone broke this Buddha head statue we had and the pool cover by sitting on it. Besides that, it was pretty much mechanical stu experienced because of the property damage.

“Too many came and started hopping the fence which is how so many people got in,” Bhatia said. “But if I could [throw a party] at someone’s house or something where I wasn’t responsible, or if I had really good security, I might throw one again.”

Reggie*, a sophomore in college, said he began selling fake IDs during his senior year when he became aware of the high demand at his school.

“I was in the library one day [in high school], and then my cousin showed me a website to buy fake IDs for $60 each,” Reggie said. “I went up to a bunch of kids who needed fake IDs and I was like ‘$100 for two copies,’ bought them on the website, resold them and made $40 on each one. I probably sold 80 of them.”

According to Reggie, a Google search can bring up hundreds of accessible websites to illegally obtain fake IDs. Reggie said he served as a facilitator between these websites and high school students by placing orders in large quantities to lower the cost of the fakes for everyone in the group order.

“It’s so easy to get a fake ID online, but it’s just cheaper for kids to buy them through dealers who order the cards in bulk,” Reggie said. “When I used the website to buy the IDs, I could only use Bitcoin because it leaves no paper trail for the government to track the illegal transactions.”

Reggie said he has noticed that many bouncers do not check IDs.

“I don’t live [in LA] anymore, but I’ve been to [a speci c bar] and a lot of my friends go there a lot,” Reggie said. “It’s literally only meant for underage kids. People that are over 23 are frowned upon for going there because [it seems like] they would be going there to get clubs underage can be dangerous and irresponsible at times.

“I was waiting for the manager to come down and get us and I turn around and see this girl sitting in the front seat of some 40-year-old man’s car,” Candace said. “I was like ‘oh my god, that’s [a Harvard-Westlake senior], that has to be a sugar daddy.’ I was leaving, and I see the girl holding hands across the table with the 45-year-old man.”

Kriger said although an increasing number of students are frequenting bars instead of throwing parties, she feels little pressure from classmates in her grade to purchase a fake ID.

“You can have a perfect high school experience without going to bars,” Kriger said. “If anything, you’ll miss out on your high school experience more by not going to parties than by not going to bars.”

Avery Kim ’25 said he would not purchase a fake ID because of the risks and responsibilities that come with having one.

“When a club has an age restriction, you should abide by it,” Kim said. “ ere can be plenty of dangers with going to a club, and all types of things can happen which you might not be ready for. People with fakes just have to acknowledge they have to handle a situation if something goes wrong. Getting a fake [ID] is kind of a choice for people to make for themselves. In that case, I don’t think you’re really presenting much of a danger to other people, you’re more presenting a danger to yourself with something you could potentially do wrong or have happen to you.”

Willow said one downside to attending clubs is that a night out can be much more expensive than going to a party.

“Each drink at a club is around $20 and that’s just because LA is expensive in general,” Willow said. “Versus at a high school party where you pay to get in, it could range from $10-$15.”

*Names have been changed. e bars referred to in this article did not respond to a request for comment.

By Averie P errin and Iona L ee

It’s quiet on campus. Georgiana* and the rest of the girls from the theater department gather in a circle, tucked away in one of the campus’s most secluded locations. ey believe they are alone. ese students are participating in the girls pre-show before their rst performance of the school play––a secret ritual, passed down through the department’s generations, restricted only to the female members of the cast. Little did they know, they were not, in fact, alone; they were in plain view of a school security camera.

Georgiana said the guards on the other side of the camera acted quickly, deeming the ritual inappropriate and reporting the cast’s actions to the administration.

“ e incident was determined to be of sexual nature, but we theater kids thought it was not,” Georgiana said. “It was just [sexual] in their mind. Still, I can never look at the security guards the same again.”

Georgiana said this tradition consists of performances honoring famous school theater alumni.

“We have to come two hours early for girls pre-show, so no one sees us,” Georgiana said. “We go to a secluded spot that [will] not be revealed, somewhere on campus that people rarely ever go. ere are songs and dances involved, naturally. In the songs and dance, we pay homage to people who did theater at Harvard-Westlake and are now successful in that industry.”

Georgiana said besides just honoring alumni, the girls are forced to show reverence to upperclassmen, too.

“ e whole thing is actually about age hierarchy,” Georgiana said. “It’s all about seniors, sophomores and juniors. You have to pay respect to your elder theater kids. If you don’t, there are consequences. I’m not even kidding. ere are very speci c ways in which you have to pay respect to the seniors, and you will be shamed if you do not follow those. It’s kind of like a sorority rush.”

Georgiana said the ritual used to involve kidnapping.

“Back in the day, they used to [use] blindfolds to bring people to the location of the pre-show,” Georgiana said. “We no longer do that, but now we get harassed by the seniors out in the open, and then they chase us to the location.”

A participant in girls preshow, Elise Fried ’24 said she feels very close and comfortable with her fellow cast members.

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy, and just the fact that we have a pre-show that you’re sworn to secrecy about is weird,” Fried said. “A lot of the layers of traditions surrounding the shows could be compared to a cult. e theater department is a really close department, and we all spend a lot of time together, and you really are bonded. So some would say cult, I would say family.”

A popular student group on campus that also requires con dentiality from its members is Peer Support. Peer Support is a club that meets after school in small groups where students can share their problems with peers, while trained student leaders moderate discussion.

Peer Support Trainee Lily Stambouli ’24 said the secretive nature of Peer Support is intimidating and can seem weird to outsiders.

“You’re literally going into a room with people who might be strangers, and you’re sharing things and playing games, and then everything that happens in those rooms is totally con dential,” Stambouli said. “ at’s lowkey culty activity, but I don’t think it’s culty activity in a bad way, necessarily. I think it’s cool.”

Stambouli said that the con dentiality of the group makes it more attractive.

“People thinking that Peer Support is a cult makes it more appealing,”

Stambouli said. “Although Peer said. “ is year, it was Greece. And so you have people dressing up like characters from the movie Grease or just like Greek gods or goddesses. I was a frat boy because of Greek life. ere’s a lot of variety. If you have ever seen ‘Midsommar,’ that’s exactly what the Peer Support retreat is like.”

Former Chronicle Sta Writer Grace Coleman ’24 said she feels that e Chronicle, the school’s newspaper and another major student group, is exclusive and known for being weird.

“Chronicle feels like a family of incest,” Coleman said. “Everyone on e Chronicle is somehow weirdly and deeply connected to each other in this strange excluding manner that makes everyone whisper ‘What the f***’s going on with Chronicle?’ ‘Why the f*** is Chronicle so weird?’ and ‘Chronicle’s a cult,’ because Chronicle is a cult and everyone on Chronicle is in a cult, speci cally the seniors.”

Coleman said Chronicle seniors ordered her around, and she was forced to do errands and tasks for them.

“When I was a sophomore on Chronicle, the seniors and juniors would just send us out to Starbucks to pick up their food and bring everything back to Ralph’s to pick up snacks,” Coleman said. “So instead of us doing work, they just ordered us around.”

Coleman said she was hazed by upperclassmen on Chronicle and had to follow her edi

Chris Weng ’24 said he feels his team is exclusive, and members receive di erent treatment based on how much e ort they put into the sport.

“Your perceived e ort level does have a bit of bearing on how you’re treated on a team,” Weng said. “If you see someone putting e ort into something, we respect that. When you see everyone trying and putting in everything they’ve got, that creates a really close bond, but if someone’s not trying, it can kind of damage that. It just kind of feels disrespectful. I feel a little bit more closed o to them because I can’t relate to them in that same way.”

When Junior Varsity cross country member Grady Ramberg ’24 quit cross country, Weng said he and other team members held a memorial for Ramberg.

“We wanted to do something special for him, so we did a little bit of trolling and decided that we were going to see him o ,” Weng said. “Being a bunch of stupid high school boys, we bought a bunch of hardwood, brought some power tools, made a co n and painted it. We brought it to school, wore suits and ran around the track while blasting music.”

Ramberg said the ritual after he quit the team was heartwarming and felt nice to be memorialized.

“I’m just very surprised [because] I knew something was happening, but I was not expecting a co n and suits,” Ramberg said. “It was kind of nice. It’s a little sad because I won’t spend as much time with the team, so it was a nice send-o , I guess.”

Ramberg said he felt very close to the team and bonded by the di culty of the sport.

“It really is like a family, especially after going to a Big Bear, where we spend a week with each other just running up in the mountains,” Ramberg said. “We’re so close afterward because we spend so much time together. Running is so painful, and when you do that with friends, you get much closer with them. When you go through pain with someone, you really know each other and pick up on so much about the other per son. I guess this makes it seem like a cult from the outside with some of our cult-ish activities, but it’s all because we are just so close, so it makes sense why people on the outside are confused.”

Ramberg said the team environment can become unhealthy despite how much he enjoys the sport.

“I enjoy running, and I love the team, but it’s a little tox ic with getting onto varsity especially because we’re all so close to each other, and we don’t want to be ghting with each other, but we kind of have to,” Ramberg said. “With everyone running a certain amount of hours per week and having to come to every practice, it limits us to cross country being the only thing we do. We’re Harvard-Westlake students, and we can only do one thing.”

Like Weng, Ramberg said runners who do not put as much effort into the team as others are treated di erently from others who try harder and are excluded.

“You kind of get made fun of a lot if you’re not running on Varsity or if you’re not hitting your weekly volume every week,” Ramberg said. “If you’re not running as much as the lead people, or you’re not as fast, it’s like you’re not as close with everyone or not as much part of a team. In order to belong, you have to run a certain way and be dedicated enough, but people often are able to become varsity and be part of that group. ey can train more than they’re usually able to.”

’23 said water polo is another sport that has a close-knit community that spends a lot of time together.

“A lot of us spend a lot of our time together because we have three-hour practices every single day, and it’s hard not to get really attached to everybody,” Burghardt said. “A lot of us will get lunch and dinner with each other all the time. We also have a team banquet every year, which is pretty fun.”

Burghardt said the team tries to have a light-hearted attitude.

“We’re never gonna take anything all that seriously,” Burghardt said. “We’re always gonna have fun with everything we do. Even [in] our toughest times, we nd a way to bring each other up and have a good time.”

Burghardt said there are water polo traditions to introduce players to the team.

“Every freshman has to wear a suit on the rst day of school,” Burghardt said.

English Teacher and Department Head Larry Weber said he often sees students who participate in extracurricular activities together gravitate toward each other.

“Similar interests is how you make friends,” Weber said. “We all want to have friendship, and these activities are what provide the opportunity to connect with someone interesting. It might feel like it feeds into cliquishness, but if you’re so busy and time-limited, where are you going to scratch that itch for real connection? It’s gonna be in the limited places where you spend your time.”

Water polo player Jack Burghardt

“It basically tells all your freshmen teachers that you’re on the water polo team and that even though you’re on the water polo team, you’re more committed to school than you are to water polo, and it is really fun.”

Weber said he believes these close student groups are natural and can be good social opportunities.

“ ey can be really positive as long as you don’t feel like you’re losing your identity, and if those groups don’t purposefully exclude,” Weber said. “Group identities inevitably form, and it’s kind of what makes being in a group fun. You can encourage each other towards a sense of group identity that can be a great expression of your kind of mutual sense of humor, as long as you don’t become a terrorist group.”

*Name has been changed.

By Iona L ee and Averie P errin

Garrett* sat in the back of his math class with his laptop open, watching as Guest6598344956 moved a knight and anticipating his own turn in their virtual chess game. His math teacher’s voice lecturing about polar coordinates was faint in the background. Garrett, like many other students, said he frequently plays online games in class.

“I only play games on my computer in classes that don’t really matter and are easy,” Garrett said. “In math, I don’t think it really a ects [my grades] too much. Also, in Spanish, my teacher knows that I am playing chess, but she doesn’t care. I play [games] in classes where I don’t need their help and where I don’t really need to talk or interact with the teacher.”

History Teacher Dror Yaron said he often notices students are distracted when they are on their computers.

“Rarely do I nd a student solely engaged in note-taking without seeing their wandering nger,” Yaron said. “I immediately will call on them and say, ‘So what do you think?’ and they’ll jump. It’s like putting candy in front of a small child, like a lollipop, and saying that you can’t lick it, but you can play with it with your ngers. A big robust, juicy, sugar- lled, fructose lollipop. It’s very damaging.”

Yaron said students would be more engaged in class if there were stricter rules about the use of electronic devices.

“If the administration laid down the line and said, ‘no cell phones, and no computers,’ in the long term, it would be tremendously bene cial for everyone’s well-being, mental health and engagement with each other,” Yaron said. “[It would be] an active positive culture in the school, quite frankly.”

In addition to issues with technology, Yaron said few students seem more devot ed to learning than boosting their GPA.

“Rare is a student that exclusively––and maybe this shouldn’t be the case––that really is focused, on inherent curiosity and investigation, and grades are secondary,” Yaron said. “I don’t blame the students, though. ey’re part of a system that has generated an environment of competition.”

Yaron said he worries many students use grades as a representation of their worth.

“ e grade that one earns is not a re ection of the person, it’s a re ection of the work that they undertake,” Yaron said. “It’s a re ection of the preparation, the choices, the priorities or just circumstances. I wish, in an ideal world, that grades were not as impactive, but we are made up of a community that’s very type-A personality, very hyper-competitive, very much oriented towards status, in the sense of attaining the highest status of college ranking.”

Yaron said he gives grades based on merit and not based on a student’s perceived e ort.

“I love Harvard-Westlake, and I love the students, and I love engagement with them, and obviously at the immediate level, I want to appease and appeal to students where I can,” Yaron said.

“But, at the end of the day, I will never succumb to the idea that me giving high grades is some kind of unwritten agreement that [because] I really like you as a student and know you tried really hard, here’s 105%. I think you’re discrediting the student. You’re discarding their dignity as a human being.”

Nuzzy Sykes ’24 said he appreciates his relationships with teachers, but they primarily depend on his interest in the subject.

“If I have an interest in what’s going on, I’m going to be able to interact and relate to the teacher a lot more through the topics that they’re teaching, than if I’m trying to make small talk with them,” Sykes said. “Some teachers will make jokes in class, and I like some teachers that naturally make their classes engaging and fun.” with the teachers [where] they just say ‘get this work done, I’ll grade it and then I’ll see you at the next class,’” Sykes said. “Sooner or later, they’ll tell some story or interact in some new way that brings another depth to them. So, there are denitely some teachers that establish more of that personal connection than others, but in general, I feel like all teachers have some level of humanity to them.”

Sykes said he feels connected to many of his teachers, even if they don’t forge particularly close bonds with students.

Cole Hall ’24 said the di culty of junior year has prompted him to foster close relationships with his teachers.

“ is year, [teachers] are de nitely way more friendly,” Hall said. “I’ve been told not to disclose which teacher I call by their rst name because he doesn’t want to — he was like, ‘that’s like a terrible look, and you’re not actually allowed to do that’ — but I do call so many teachers by the rst name, and most of them have nicknames at this point. I’ve grown a lot closer with a lot of them just because this is de nitely a pressure-cooker year, and teachers kind of understand that. I feel like the teachers now, compared to all my prior years at Harvard-Westlake, are just trying to create even more of a connection with students.”

Hall said he feels disappointed in himself when he does poorly on an assignment, but that he has learned how to get back on track.

“With my relationship with my teachers, when I get a bad grade, I feel like I kind of let them down in some way, es pecially when I do spend some amount of extra time with them,” Hall said. “I personally have de ‘teachers suck’ moments, but I don’t think that’s happened this year. More so [I’ve] been like, ‘okay, how do I hop back on the horse?’ just because I’ve been able to build those relationships with my teachers.”

When students receive poor grades, Science Teacher Nancy Chen said she does not give grades based on student effort, but that she appreciates when her students try to learn and succeed in her courses.

“For the students who put in a lot of effort and show a lot of growth, I feel very proud of them, because I know how much work it takes to understand something that you don’t really understand,” Chen said. “So I have a different set of feelings for them because I acknowledge that they’re working hard and am proud of how far they have come.”

Chen said she does not judge students who do not put as much effort into her class because she realizes they have other commitments.

“For the students who do understand the topics and [put less effort into my class], I understand that they’re still putting time into [my class], but they are also putting time into other classes,” Chen said. “[That is] why I do go to athletic events, musicals, or plays and band, because that effort could be put somewhere else that becomes more of a priority for them. Also, other subjects could be harder than my subject. So, I have to recognize that if they’re putting less effort in, that doesn’t mean that they’re not putting effort into who they are and what they’re doing to grow as a person.”

*Name has been changed.

• Continued on hwchronicle.com

By K arsten C ole and D

In her third grade classroom, Natalia Johnson ’23 said she was always amused by her teacher’s antics. Every time she got a name wrong, Ms. Anderson would drop to the floor and do thirty five push-ups. Though Johnson didn’t know it at the time, Ms. Anderson’s background as a military veteran would go on to play an influential role in Johnson’s own life. Today, Johnson is set to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a goal she said she has been building toward for her entire life. According to the school’s matriculation data, only three students at the school have attended West Point in the last five years, but Johnson said she feels comfortable attending a service academy.

“One thing I like about service academies is that everyone’s more well connected and knows each other afterward,” Johnson said. “I wanted to be a part of West Point in particular because it has a long history, and there are a lot of great people there. I knew that a civilian college wasn’t right for me, so I wanted to go to a place that fully captured the military culture.”

According to the West Point website, service academies di er greatly from conventional colleges. e largest di erence is that all students who graduate are required to serve in the military for at least eight years. To prepare for this, students are required to participate in military training and play a sport, while also maintaining a rigorous academic schedule. Because of the service components, all students attend school for free and even get paid $1000 every month for expenses such as laundry, books and activity fees. After graduation, all students also immediately become a second lieutenant in their branch. West Point receives many applicants, but it only lets in 10.7 percent of them each year, according to U.S. News and World Re - port. Johnson said much of this is because of its unique application, which contains many di cult requirements.

“I think it’s around an 80-hour application, and that’s only if you’re applying to one academy,” Johnson said. “You have to get a nomination from a congressman, a senator or the Vice President, which is very rare. You have to pass their medical [exam], and then you have to pass their fitness exam as well.

That’s all in addition to the regular essays. I was lucky to get my congressman’s nomination, so I wasn’t stressed about getting one from a senator.”

Johnson said her dean had to learn about the school with her during the application process since applying to a service academy is not common at the school.

“My dean was doing research along with me because the school doesn’t have any data,” Johnson said. “ e application process is so di erent for service academies, so the deans actually had to do a lot of research as well to help me. I would recommend that there [be] more resources going towards service academies, because it’s a great opportunity, and I think a lot of Harvard-Westlake students would do well there.”

Despite this, Johnson said service academies have a bad reputation in the private school community, despite the excellent education they o er.

“ ere’s this misinterpretation that going into the military is what to do if you can’t get into college,” Johnson said. “It’s like your second option, but it’s really not. ere are so many intelligent people, and you’re basically getting an Ivy League-level education and all this training for free. So it’s really an opportunity that I think a lot of students, especially in private schools, don’t realize. I also knew that a civilian college wasn’t right for me. I wanted to [go to] a place that fully captured the military culture.”

Colin Weidmann ’08, who at- tended West Point 15 years ago, said he was also enticed by the great education o ered by the school.

“For me, [going to West Point] was about the great education,” Weidmann said. “West Point is the fifth highest producing Rhodes Scholar school of any college in the country, which a lot of people don’t realize. I also wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do, and it was an opportunity to do something a little bit different, which I’ve always enjoyed. I now have 11 total years in [the military], so I didn’t look at that five-year commitment as a negative.”

Once he arrived at West Point, Weidmann studied international relations and Chinese, eventually securing majors in both areas. Like all students at West Point, Weidmann also had extracurricular activities, which he said made the days grueling yet rewarding.

“I woke up at about 6 a.m. every day, and I had formation at 6:50 a.m.,” Weidmann said. “At West Point, you take a lot of classes relative to a normal college schedule. I probably averaged like 20 credit hours while I was there, and I also double majored. Everybody at West Point also has to play a sport, so I was on the club marathon team, and every afternoon, we would go do our running practice from about 3:30-5 p.m.”

Like all West Point students, Weidmann was immediately commissioned as an officer after graduation. After working in different positions for a few years, including deployment in Afghanistan, Weidmann decided to make the switch to special forces, a selective military unit designed to conduct operations with complex parameters. Weidmann said he enjoyed his time with special forces because it allowed him to experience his studies from a different perspective.

“Special Forces [is] probably one of the more intellectually rigorous jobs in the military,” Weidmann said. “We’re practitioners of international relations at the tactical level. So, on the ground, we’re in foreign countries working with foreign militaries, going to embassies, talking with di erent people. It’s a really cool application of what you learn in the classroom actually on the ground, in being able to think through some of those problems.”

When Weidmann rst told his friend Jack LaZebnik ’09 that he was thinking about applying to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, LaZebnik said he didn’t understand the decision due to the school’s mandatory service obligation.

“Nobody joins the military coming out of Los Angeles, let alone Harvard-Westlake,” LaZebnik said. “I will never forget the rst time he brought up West Point. I thought, why would you throw away your life like that? ere’s a stigma that the military is where the rejects go.”

Just three years later, however, LaZebnik would nd himself following in Weidmann’s footsteps. While there were many factors that in uenced his decision to attend a service academy, LaZebnik said he was drawn to West Point because of the challenge it presented him with. “ ere was a point [at] which I was looking around at other universities, but they all seemed more similar than they did di erent,” LaZebnik said. “When I considered West Point, I felt like I would nish that experience in four years and have been through the hardest experience of anybody from my high school or, holistically speaking, from the country. It gave me a lot of pride.”

After graduation, LaZebnik said he immediately entered the army as an infantry officer responsible for around 40 soldiers. When he was deployed to Afghanistan, his role became far more abstract, and he said he eventually found himself leading an undercover, two-person reconnaissance team. Although the work was challenging, LaZebnik said he felt prepared by the pressure he faced at the school.

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