Insider Perspective: Being a New Student at Lausanne

By Isabel McDonald

    Being a new student anywhere can be frightening. There are new people, teachers, and ways of learning. All schools deal with new students, but only some schools truly make their their students feel welcome. Lausanne is one of these very rare schools.

   When I came to Lausanne, I wasn’t starting off the same way as many other of my classmates. I started my ninth grade year at Lausanne six weeks into the term, having transferred from another school before fall break. I was nervous about making up all the work, meeting new people, and taking MYP classes. It all seemed overwhelming and I didn’t even know where to start. That’s where the Lausanne community stepped in to help. The teachers were truly extraordinary; each one made it their priority to aid me in catching up to my classmates. They came in before school to answer my questions and even stayed after school to make sure that I understood the information. What really made the staff here stand out, is that they helped me feel welcome and settled into my new environment.  No other teacher ever played such a role in my former school. My Lausanne classmates also made me feel welcome; helping me to find my way to classes, sports assemblies, and explaining to me how to use Veracross. They didn’t make me feel like an awkward new student, but rather treated me with a friendly openness that I would never believe was possible.

     The hardest thing for me in the transfer was getting used to the MYP program. At my prior school, I was used to test after test, but never doing many projects or papers. This changed as the MYP program is a much more interactive way of learning. With the help of my teachers and many hours of dedication, I was able to complete the assignments and even found the MYP system helped me grasp the information better. Before coming to Lausanne, I would have never have thought that there was any other way of learning than repetitive testing, but now having experience  this new process, I would never want to go back.

    Overall, Lausanne has truly welcomed me as a new student and made my hard mid-semester transfer feel like a breeze. Lausanne has been a good choice for me.