HHS News Flash: An Interview with Eleanor Patten

“HHS News Flash” is an assignment for journalism class; students can choose to

write about a recent event, do an op-ed piece, or interview someone new.

I interviewed a freshman, Eleanor Patten, who really likes all the freedom and

new choices she gets from coming to the high school from the middle school. She feels

that the greatest difference between the two schools is that there is more freedom and

more people at the high school. At the moment, she likes the high school best.

Her favorite thing about the high school is the courses she can choose. She

really likes having the ability to take honors courses: she is in Honors Biology, Honors

Geometry, and Spanish 2 Honors. She also likes music and is taking chorus right now.

Her least favorite thing about high school is managing her time: she over-commits herself

sometimes and has trouble finding time to eat. She finds it difficult to adjust to the lack

of a lunch period, but she likes that you can eat in class. Her favorite class based on the

people in it is Honors Geometry, because she has many friends in that class. Her favorite

class based on the subject being taught is a tie between Honors Biology and Chorus.

She likes Biology because what she is learning is new, and she really likes learning how

things work and experimenting. She likes chorus because of the social aspect of being

with kids from all four grades, and the variety that this creates, and because she loves to

sing. Her least favorite class is Civitas; she finds learning about democracy boring and

would rather see it in action. She loves the teachers—she just doesn’t like the course.

The hardest thing for her about freshman year has been learning her load and who

her friends are. The easiest thing for her, she says, is showing up.

Eleanor likes the ropes course program in P.E. Even though she is scared of

heights, she thinks that it is cool that she is still able to do it. She also likes that students

can challenge themselves by choice. One of the activities she does is field hockey, which

she thinks is really fun. She especially enjoyed the preseason because she got to meet

upperclassmen before school started, and she loves the team bonding. She is also in

Highlights, which she thinks is awesome because of the friendly environment it creates—

she says that the other girls understand what is going on in her life—and because the

songs are gorgeous. She is also on Council, which she thinks is fun because it has so

much more power than a regular council does, and she likes representing her class. She

thinks that Council at the high school is more about improving the school, while the

middle school Student Council is more like a class committee.

Eleanor is a nice and bubbly addition to Hanover High’s student body.