Beyond the Count

Exonians love talking about numbers – 333s, Art 444, SAT scores, 999 courses – the list goes on. We count so much that we ran out of fingers to count on a long time ago. One of our favorite things to count, though, is how many years we’ve all been on campus. One-year upper, two-year lower, four-year senior. Personally, three years were just enough for me on our beautiful New England school. Showing up as a new student on campus with a year of high school already under my belt, I could not wait to start my career at Exeter, no matter how far away it was from my family in Chile.

Like almost everyone else, I expected a lot of challenges when I first came to Exeter, as cliché as it sounds, but there was one that I did not see coming. Right off the bat, I was the “South American new lower,” because at first no one really knew me. The year slipped by, and I found myself intrigued by the person I was becoming and in love with our boarding school. Lower year was my year of firsts – my first bridge-jumping escapade, my first all-nighter, my first group of real best friends. There was nothing that I would have changed that year, because everything seemed to happen exactly as it should. The end of lower spring rolled around, and I was back home relaxing and enjoying summer away from Exeter, waiting for the notorious upper year. What I didn’t expect when I came back to campus was to still be called a new lower when people referred to me. The little blue sign next to my name on Lionlinks telling everyone that I was a new student had disappeared over the summer, and I thought I had already rid myself of that label. I was ready to be an upper, not just a two-year upper, but Exeter couldn’t help but counting like always.

There is no way that I would appreciate Exeter without having spent a year in high school at home. Exeter and Nido de Águilas, my American international school in Chile, are two completely different worlds, and after three years here I know that there is no place that I would rather be. I fell in love with Exeter and New England in general, but something still makes me feel like I’m a year behind my four-year friends. They tried everything a year before me, made classic Exeter mistakes before I did and will finish their time here with an entire year more than I will. By the time we all graduate, we will have all spent at least four years in high school, but for me it will always feel like three. When we all move off campus after graduation, I’ll still feel like a have a year left to fulfill, a fourth and final year that will take my new lower name away. Don’t get me wrong, I cannot wait to move onto college and jump-start the next step in my education, but I’ll always be bound to Exeter by this fleeting fourth year.

So many seniors groan about being on campus for too long, and I sometimes think that three years were enough for me. As we all prepare to leave Exeter in a matter of days, I’ll be ready to come back some day. I know that my time at Exeter has not finished yet, and that I will eventually have to claim my fourth year somehow. Every Exonian will stay connected to our school in some way after we graduate, but my missing year will keep me tied to this campus, making me want to return for more. Sure, four years are lucky because they got to spend a year longer on campus, but in the long run, I’ll be around for much, much longer than just the three years I lived here. Right now I count one, two, three years on my hand, but I’m not done with Exeter just yet – our Exeter experience will last so much longer than the time that we physically spent on campus, so I’ll count the fourth year once I’ve had my fair share.