Hey. I'm one of those girls that's been through the Orthodox Jewish system - wore a uniform to an all-girls high school, spent a year in a bubble seminary in Israel, etc. Now I'm not exactly one of those people satisfied with the mainstream, despite my history. But the realization that I giggle far too much around guys coupled with the fact that the extent of my non-Jewish experiences is a 30-hour driver's ed course in tenth grade gave me the vigor to grasp that there really was not much choice in the matter. The reality was that I was not capable of attending a secular colleg. Rather, I would go to Stern, the very place I had been pushed to attend by the legions I had defied for so many years.
So coming here, I pretty much expected high school all over again - after all, this is the ultimate, the place that is meant to save my soul in opposition to the horrible secular schools that will leave me irreligious! Once again I had given in, I had done as they told me to, and I thoroughly expected a 'frummy' place with the 80% of the students who didn't fit the mold sneaking around to do as they pleased. Predictably, I was pleasantly surprised. For better or for worse, the rules that exist are slack, the Hebrew studies take a backseat, and if so desired, you can be entirely unrelated to any school influences whatsoever. It's the first institution I've attended that has absolutely no independent interest in my private life.
Not that I'm complaining, but the situation has led me to wonder why it is that my previous schools had all urged so many of us to attend an academy that is so blatantly different? Of course there are niches in Stern to be found of more religious tendencies, but if my previous institutions didn't trust me while I was a part of their school, why would they tell me to go somewhere I have free reign?
I suppose there's nowhere else. Well. All the better for me.