As a class of 2023 senior at Hawthorne High School, I would like to reflect on what I will miss the most heading into the future and graduating soon. The most overlooked and underappreciated thing about Hawthorne High School is its size. While broad, it has influenced my experience at HHS in many ways. I did not appreciate this enough until now when I will be leaving soon. The size of Hawthorne High School positively impacted my high school career in all aspects, whether in academics or athletics.

Looking back on my four years at HHS, I am so grateful for all of the relationships that I have built with peers in my class and teachers. Small class sizes allowed me to make these close connections and thrive more in class—many of my teachers I have had for two or three years. On top of this, I will miss seeing all of my peers in my class every day in school. With a small class of about 140 students, many of whom I have been in school with since elementary and middle school, I am fortunate to know everyone and see familiar faces in the hall daily.

I have learned so much from each program as an athlete participating in girls’ soccer, indoor track, and track and field. I am especially very proud of my soccer career at HHS. Attending a small school, the sports team are guaranteed to be smaller, with fewer students trying out. Our team was always tiny for soccer, especially this year, with insufficient players to have a junior varsity team. Although this disadvantaged us, our team developed a lot of chemistry and battled in every game. This chemistry is why girls’ soccer has always been a highly valued program at HHS. Many girls on the team could also get varsity playing time, whether starting players or not. I have seen so many teammates grow and improve because of this field experience. I will never forget the sectional championship game in 2021 at Mountain Lakes when almost the entire school came to support the team. I thank Hawthorne girl’s soccer for all of the memories and the  leadership and teamwork that it equipped me with.

I have no regrets about my decision to attend HHS instead of the other schools that I toured. None of the other schools could compare to the tight community that HHS has, all stemming from its size. Sometimes less is more; in HHS’s case, it is more.