<p>I've seen a few threads about some of Hotchkiss' peer schools on here, I thought it would be a good idea to have one thread where all the Hotchkiss alums / affiliates could share their insights about the school with the general public. </p>
<p>I meant to do this for a long time, but now I've finally gotten around to actually doing it. Long story short, I'm a recent graduate of Hotchkiss and I am now studying at an Ivy league university. Hotchkiss shaped me and molded me into the man I am today in more ways than my words can do justice to it. Though that may be, in these next few paragraphs I will try to express precisely what I feel makes Hotchkiss so unique and such a life changing experience. </p>
<p>The Community </p>
<p>If there is one thing above all the I miss most about Hotchkiss, something that has become painfully obvious to me now that I am in college, is the strong bond I felt with everyone at Hotchkiss - staff and students alike. You see, to me Hotchkiss was and is a family. We're a small school and as has been noted on here several times, rather isolated. The product of that is an incredibly tight community. One of the remarkable things about Hotchkiss is the fact that it almost seemed as if class boundaries did not exist. I truly feel that I had as many lower classmen friends at Hotchkiss as I did in my own year group. I knew just about everyone in the school by name and vice-versa. That feeling of belonging is something that I doubt I will ever find again. To this day I regularly meet with many of my friends from the school. Sometimes I meet people on campus here that I never met at Hotchkiss (I was only there for two years) but because of the Hotchkiss connection we bond instantly and they seek to help me out at every turn. </p>
<p>What shocked me more about Hotchkiss was the fact that you social stature and wealth was left outside the doors of Hotchkiss - inside we were all equals. Coming to college was a shock for me, the money culture in the ivy league is so pervasive that I have found myself overwhelmed by it - Hotchkiss was nothing like that. I often retell this story to illustrate that point. For nearly half a year, I assumed that one of my best friends at Hotchkiss was a poor kid from Idaho on full scholarship. Though he dressed smartly like everyone else, he was so humble and down to earth and his room so plain that I felt that he must not have been well off financially. One day in history class we were reading about the industrial revolution and the subject turned to Henry Ford's modernization of the manufacturing process. Our teacher turned to my friend and said "that's your family isn't it." I was shocked - the boy who for whatever reason I assumed was on full financial aid turned out to be a ford - his family name was on our school's library and yet he never said a word. It's that level of humility that I found so striking, particularly seem everyone there seemed to embody it - they were true gentlemen and ladies. </p>
<p>The Teaching </p>
<p>Though it is only my first year at a college that is among the best schools in the world, I strongly believe that the education I received at Hotchkiss was vastly superior. To merely say that Hotchkiss educated me would be a severe understatement. Lenin once said that there are decades where nothing happens, but there are weeks where decades happen - Hotchkiss gave me two entire years, not weeks - everything happened. </p>
<p>For instance, though I was never interested in pursuing science as a career, Mr. Jim Morrill, a legendary biology teacher at the school, changed my perspective on science forever. Mr. Morrill was a character. I distinctly remember his white fully hair that sat atop his balding head, the tight sweaters he would wear over his corpulent belly, but most of all his piercing light blue eyes that sat behind his oval glasses. He'd been at the school since Vietnam he would tell us. To avoid being drafted into a war he felt was morally reprehensible, he decided to go teach at Hotchkiss where his wife's family was affiliated with, the rest is history. In his earlier years Mr. Morrill served in the peace corp - I hardly remember anything about the chemical structure of myosin, but I do remember him talking about living in the deep forests getting lost catching deadly diseases and doing any number of highly interesting things. I often wondered how true his stories where, for they seemed so amazing that they seemed improbable, but I doubt Mr. Morrill would ever say anything but the truth so I take his tales on face value. He made class interesting and taught us the material better than anyone could. At the end of the class, I believe everyone in a class of 15 got 5s on their AP exams and 750 or so or more on their SAT IIs. His passion for his subject shown through, and I learned tremendous things from him. </p>
<p>Mr. Herold is another teacher that comes to mind. Physically, he resembled Mr. Herold in many ways. He too was stocky and pot-bellied. His blue eyes lay behind his spectacles and he was also balding, but he was much younger. Look at his today, and you would never believe that Mr. Herold was one an All-American Athlete in both Soccer and Lacrosse, sports that he played at Dartmouth. Mr. Herold was an interesting character, he is the kind of guy that you either love or love to hate on, but it is quite impossible not to have an opinion on the man. The Herold was a grammar hawk. every single paper I gave into him came back with red ink splurged liberally across the page, sometimes I felt he was trying to replicate a Polk painting given the sheer amount of ink on my essay. He never let up "that's poor sentence-construction." "Bland. Bland. Bland. I know you can make this more interesting, make me feel her emotion." He would criticize and correct everything I did, when I was in his class I was upset by it, but now I thank him every day for it. He helped me become a better writer and I am where I am today because of him.</p>
<p>Lastly, Mr. Fall comes to mind. Mr. Fall is quite the character. He's short and very thin. If there is one thing I will always remember about him it's that he was always smiling, always laughing. Mr. Fall is originally from Senegal and taught me French. Like Mr. Herold, Mr. Fall was relentless in making sure that everything I did was up to par. He would often invite me to his home after class, his wife would cook food for me to eat and we would all sit together and talk - in French. Now I was just a second year French student so sometimes it was hard to follow, but there is only one thing in the world that I know of that can upset Mr. Fall and that is reverting to English in the middle of a conversation in French. So I found myself improvising and over time I picked up my skills in the language substantially. </p>
<p>These men were not my teachers, they were so much more, they were my friends. </p>
<p>Despite the great influence my teachers at Hotchkiss had on my life and my learning, my fellow students taught me so much more. I remember sitting transfixed, watching the election of Barack Obama in Coy Hall with friends from my hall. The tension in the room was palpable, we were roughly evenly split among partisan lines with the republicans being more vocal than we were. As soon as Mr. Obama's speech was over, the debates began. I remember debate taxes, the future of the American education system, whether Barbie should be banned, Obama's experience or lack thereof, the future of America's competitiveness in the world, and the great recession with my peers in my hall. It was a very interesting time to be in school, and I am so lucky to have shared it with such intelligent peers. We would discuss homework problems together, these kids were some of the brightest in the world it was a very humbling experience to work along side them. </p>
<p>More than that, during my senior year I learned something far more important than who was right or wrong on a particular political issue, I learned how to be a better person. One of my best friends at Hotchkiss, who I shall call C hence forth, is the nicest person I have or probably will ever know. He tried to make everyone feel comfortable. He befriended everyone and everyone loved him for it. He was a true people's person, I feel that my words sound clich</p>