When people think of the Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology, most associate it with rigorous academics. However, what truly makes the school challenging?
Alyza Surani, a junior aspiring to be a teacher, decided to come to GSMST for a new start. She believed she was capable enough to handle the pressure of this school and that it would be a great experience.
After being at this school for two years, she still faces the challenges she experienced back in freshman year: the competitive nature of GSMST, the workload, and the time management.
According to Alyza, “There’s obviously so much competition from freshman year to junior year. It has been one of the biggest challenges. Everyone is a challenge here.” Although the competitiveness among the students is one of her biggest obstacles, she appreciates the drive people have because it makes her want to do better. As for her other issues, she states that the workload is not as demanding as it was in ninth grade; the problem has shifted to being able to complete the work.
The teachers of GSMST face different problems, however. Renee Covin, an American literature teacher, has been teaching at GSMST for ten years, and she explains that the most arduous problem that she has only encountered here was incorporating technology into the classroom – a fundamental part of GSMST. As for the students’ problems, she agrees that this school has a competitive nature to it because students are not given their rankings until senior year, and that time management is an issue because of social media. Although Ms. Covin disagrees about the workload being a challenging factor, she deems that it could be difficult because compared to when she was teaching at Brookwood, GSMST students take seven classes instead of six.
