It is a gorgeous day on August 3, 2017. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and across Gwinnett, children are waking up with plans for their wonderful summer vaca — wait a minute, today is schedule pick up day! WHAT?! Suddenly, at 8 a.m. in the morning, sleepy-eyed children and teenagers turn into students, and parents turn into carpoolers and a support system for their child’s education.
All schools in Gwinnett County have schedule pickup day, or orientation for elementary and middle schools. On the outside, the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technologys (GSMST) schedule pickup day seems completely orthodox. Students bustle down the hallways and up and down three stories, walking schedules with their family. Eager teachers meet their new prodigies, answering questions about the new school year. Friends reconnect and compare schedules, hoping that they get at least one class together. However, since we are GSMST, here we do things in a very special way.
For our rising freshmen, the air was filled with anxiety and dire curiosity. At our school, freshmen come from all middle schools across the county. So, when a student of the class of 2021 walked across our front doors for the first time as students, they confronted 374 other faces and did not recognize about 80% of the freshmen they saw. However, as frightening as this may seem, this serves as the first and greatest opportunity of real life exposure. Students quickly learn that they are not always going to be surrounded by people they know, but everyone must work together to succeed in whatever task is set forth for us.
Although rising freshmen get the opportunity to tour the school, they have not experienced the real trademark of GSMST yet – the marvelous, utilitarian laptops. Every year, all the rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors can pick up their Lenovo laptops along with their schedules, a tool that we GSMST students cannot live without. To organize the 600+ laptops that needed to be passed out, National Honor Society student members along with the GSMST Technology Team worked hard to distribute them to students from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Freshmen, on the other hand, will be receiving their laptops two weeks after school starts.
Finally, as an outreach to our student body, the GSLT (Gwinnett Student Leadership Team) and GSMSTs Student Council sponsored Popsicles on the Patio! Together, they organized a small meet-and-greet so that anyone interested in leadership opportunities or with questions about GSMST could talk with GSMSTs student leaders while enjoying a delicious treat in the hot summer sun. I guess we did have a taste of summer!
I love how, even on our schedule pickup day, GSMST expresses its uniqueness even before the school year has started. With schedule pickup day setting the stage for a great year, I personally cant wait to get back to school.
Check out GSMSTs Student Councils webpage at http://stuco.gsmst.org/ and GSMSTs GSLT webpage at https://www.gslt.online/copy-of-photos-1. You can also follow GSMSTs Student Council Instagram page @stucogsmst as well as GSLTs Instagram page @gsmst.gslt.
