High school students are students, too
By Laura McMullen, Staff Writer
March 24, 2008 | 3:50 p.m.
Strolling by the Game Research and Immersive Design Lab on Court Street on a weekday afternoon, one will notice something a little off. The students raiding the area are shorter, louder and well, not college kids at all – they are high school students.
It turns out that high school students do the same sorts of things in Athens that college students do.
“We just come up here to hang out with our friends sometimes and eat,” said Casandra Wallace, a freshman at Athens High School.
Wallace and her friend, ninth grader Marla Nixon, listed a few of their favorites: $3.95 Chinese, Jimmy John's, the GRID Lab and Alden Library. This should come as no surprise since cheap food and gaming are some things all ages around here seem to appreciate.
As for the library, Wallace and Nixon went on to explain that they often go there to use the computers. Apparently high school kids also find joy in the simple things as well.
“Sometimes we just go to the Baker Center and ride the escalators a lot,” Nixon explained.
This behavior, along with the tendency to occasionally trash the gaming area and surrounding restaurants, could explain why most high school students, especially the ones who look younger, are fairly used to getting dirty looks from college kids.
“It doesn’t happen a lot, but sometimes [college students] look at us like we’re dumb and stupid,” Wallace said.
While sometimes it is tempting to throw a casual glare to passing 15-year-olds because they act their age, it may be important to remember the role they play at Ohio University. For one, most of these high school students have parents that serve college students in one way or another.
Wallace, Nixon and Austin Riggs, an 11th grader who works at the GRID Lab, are the children of at least one faculty or staff member at OU. In fact, Nixon’s mother has worked at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital for almost a decade.
Also, because some of their parents work for the university and thus can send their kids to school at a reduced price, many Athens High School students will attend OU. Riggs estimated that of the 250 people in his junior class, about 80 percent have parents who work for the university. About 80 percent of those kids, he judged, plan to go to OU.
If the math checks out, that means that those children cluttering the Baker University Center escalators may very well be the future classmates of current OU students.
Graduate student Jared Braden works at Specialty Books, the GRID Lab’s next-door neighbor. He said that while high school students are sometimes rowdy customers, it is important for high school students to spend time on campus.
“If they weren’t hanging out [on campus], they’d be hanging out in places where they probably shouldn’t be,” Braden said.
High school students are still students nonetheless. They study, go to school and eat Jimmy John's just like us. Since their parents help us out (and since they likely will be on those escalators for class and not for fun within a few short years), perhaps it is best to just let them take in the campus and let them be 15 years old.
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