What is life like as a Beaver student? We interviewed several students across all grades—from middle school to senior year—to get a peek into the Beaver student experience. Below you’ll hear from Aly Lief ’30—a rising 10th grader. Aly discussed finding friends at a new school, making an arcade game in physics, and the class that surprised her most.
Congrats on finishing freshman year! What was it like?
Freshman year was fun, challenging, and memorable. Many times throughout the year I thought that I would be bad at a certain unit, like with coding, but with the way the teachers taught the material, I understood it really well.
The first day of 9th grade can be intimidating. What were some things you were nervous about? How did you overcome them?
Coming into freshman year I was nervous about not being able to make any friends within my classes. Because I play soccer, I had preseason so I got to meet a few freshmen, which made finding friendly faces in class a little bit easier. I was also nervous about not being able to understand the material, but with how friendly the teachers were, I had an easy time asking questions and learning all the material.
What activities at Beaver helped you find community and feel a sense of belonging?
I found a sense of belonging with the soccer team. The soccer team feels like a little family. We have captains practices in the off season, team dinners, and our bus rides during the season are hysterical. All of this makes the team feel very put together. The soccer team made me feel welcomed and invited right off the bat which was an awesome feeling.
What’s a project you worked on that you really enjoyed? Why?
My favorite project was my physics arcade game project. I got to do it with two of my close friends and it was a project that was challenging because a few issues happened within our wiring, but overall there was a ton of laughter and smiles throughout the entire time of the project and overall our arcade game came out basically perfect, we did a version of knock over a clown, but instead of clowns it was beavers.
The amount of memories I have made throughout the year in and out of class have shown me the awesome friendships you can make even going into the school year not knowing many people.
Aly Lief '29
What was your favorite class?
Physics, because I thought that I wouldn’t be good at physics, but in all reality I was good at it and really enjoyed it. The way that both of my teachers taught made the material very easy to understand. I thought that I would be terrible at coding, but with using examples and asking questions, I turned out to be very good at coding and ended up with a perfect code for my identity project.
What’s a class or a project you didn’t expect to enjoy as much as you did?
I took a photography class and we had an independent project. This project was student-led, so I decided to use photos I had taken during the fall, winter, and spring term to create a “double exposure” edit. After doing this independent project I realized that you can be so creative with how you portray people, athletes, and objects. Getting to see what the rest of my class did was rewarding because everyone has a different idea and perspective.
What would you say is the BEST part of being a Beaver student?
My favorite part of Beaver are the friends you make through classes, sports, clubs, etc. Those are the people that you make memories with and can rely on when you need to. The people are great and are very kind.
Time for some rapid-fire questions!
Favorite class: Physics: Engineering
Favorite lunch: Chicken tikka masala
Favorite spot on campus: Window bench
Favorite afternoon activity: Soccer
Favorite Upper School event: HarvestFest or Dam Jam
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