As students walk from class to class, their minds are usually preoccupied with an upcoming test, what they have planned after school, or searching the hallways for friends.
What often goes unnoticed are the strangers around them, with many not even bothering to stop and think about where someone may come from, what they’re like, what they do for fun.
Despite most students having been here most of their lives, PVHS has a few different students whose stay here is a temporary arrangement. For sophomore Michelle Locher, her coming here all the way from Switzerland felt like a “high-school movie.”
Coming from approximately 6,000 miles away, things like the ocean, multiple periods and even lunch schedules, for her are “pretty American,” but also a new and interesting experience.
Coming from Rome, the big surprise wasn’t the school events for junior Vittorio Tosti, but differences like the architecture. Rome apartments have grandeur, arches, and color, and are characterized by the city; Palos Verdes feels suburban and quiet.
Junior Chengzi Cui is from the busy city of Hong Kong, and also noted PV is less compact compared to China. In fact, a common issue for transfer students was the lack of independence when it comes to getting from place to place. Without public transport, they must depend on their host families for rides.
Cui also noticed the different attitude towards students from teachers. “Teachers here, I could feel their passion. They are really willing to help us, and they really care about us,” she said, a stark difference from China.
The differences between their home countries and the U.S. don’t end there, but it’s also smaller things that we’ve just accepted and we don’t even notice anymore.
For Locher, it’s not just the fact that being in such a different school feels like being in a movie, but she is shocked by how many school events PVHS has, from dances to spirit days. “We don’t have a single dance. There are six years of school-we have nothing,” she said.
However, she still misses the sense of independence received from the public transport in Switzerland.
Tosti says that the weather is perfect here; he appreciates the climate and the relaxed pace of life. However, he still misses his friends back home and values the quality of the friendship.
“You make a friend in primary school, and you stay with him for all days,” he said.
Their experiences highlight how much of daily life people take for granted, or simply don’t acknowledge at all. Things as simple as school dances, or even the size of roads may feel ordinary to people born here, but for someone coming from across the world, they become symbols of a different culture. Their stories demonstrate that PVHS is not just a school, but a community where different global perspectives meet and influence each other.