Molded

What was the reason you came to Exeter? For me, it was an opportunity to remove myself from a hostile environment and transfer to a place where I would be surrounded by intelligent people who would accept me for who I was. As a kid, I dreamt of going to Exeter, and when I received my acceptance letter, I was overjoyed. I could finally leave behind my old life and begin anew. But of all the thoughts that were racing through my mind, one of the most important problems that I would face coming to this school was skipped over: "How would Exeter change me as a person?" The first thing I noticed upon coming here was the heavy political nature of the school. I, as a middle schooler, had never actually thought about politics. If I ever vocalized my opinions on a candidate, it was because someone I idolized had voiced the same opinion. But when I came to Exeter, everything changed. I realized for the first time that the candidates and their viewpoints actually meant something, and that I would have to match my ideas to a certain worldview soon enough.During my prep and lower year, I was often brutally outnumbered in any argument I partook in. Being a conservative exposed me to similar problems of being disliked that I had faced in middle school. At the end of lower year, sick of all this battering, I was forced to adapt. Nowadays, I rarely engage in outright political discussions, even though my opinions have only become more radical since then. In a way, I became more tolerant towards others.If you asked someone from my old school, they would tell you that I cried after receiving an A- on a Spanish quiz. While I deny this claim, it does give a glimpse into how life was for me before Exeter. Like many Exonians in our pre-Exeter days, I got As in my classes and was constantly outdoing my peers with little effort. However, at Exeter, there is one thing I know for sure: you will do badly at least once. Dealing with tests and papers with C’s scrawled across them in red ink was hard. And while now I shrug the failure off as just another part of this place, years of not reaching my goals have left me wondering how I will do in the real world.There is a culture at Exeter, just as much as any other high school, based around sex, hookups and the casual Carpe Diem attitude of teenagers. When I came here, I wasn't exactly innocent, but the ideas of students regularly gettings 5s and joining the infamous "Harkness Society" were shocking to me. My opinions on this teenage culture began shifting as I adapted to Exeter life. I started to see these things as natural parts of society. This was the start of my transition into to real-world modern culture.Of all the changes that we undergo at Exeter, the social, the political and the changes in character alike, the thing that shifts the most is our perception of people. You can look around and see the lines under people's eyes and the frowns on their faces as they struggle through each day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.. These struggles are generally taken as just part of the “Exeter grind” and given little attention. We have become desensitized to the pain that both ourselves and others experience. For a group of "the best and the brightest,” we are surprisingly like everybody else.If we had gone to another high school, there is no saying how we would have turned out. Whether all these changes occurred specifically because of Exeter or were natural changes to adolescence and high school, I have no idea. I do, however, know that Exeter molds us like a ball of clay, and we have very little power to do anything about it.