First day impressions can mean everything, and for a high school as large and intimidating as high school, a new student can be deterred from walking through the first pair of double doors. However, despite its daunting appearance, our school can bring out the best of students who traverse its hallways, and integrate with our community.

One of our newest students, Otto Collazo, recounts his experience here at our school, and the effects the school had on him at first sight. Hailing from New York, the change in scenery in both the social sphere and geographic conditions was a definite change, but a welcome one.

“New York was a place where people aren’t necessarily difficult but they’re not as  nice as they are here.” Collazo said. “I know it probably shouldn’t be a surprise, but I found it kind of surprising that Glenn was so welcoming. All the teachers were so nice, and all my classmates are being really nice.I don’t know that many people or anything but the people that I do know have been really nice to me and welcoming.”

However, the events, and past experiences, left the first day of school with high tensions. As Collazo had only experienced the relationships between teacher and student in New York, it led to a surprise from the experience he received with Glenn.

“I had my first impression of Glenn twice, in the sense that I’ve been to the school but I’ve never really been inside. It’s been months since I’ve started the school year and I still haven’t actually been inside the school.” Collazo said. “I had two first impressions because my uncle works under Leander ISD, and so he took me to see the school. I still haven’t seen the interior but it was very daunting and odd. I felt intimidated from the school because it was very large.”

His first class was fortunately one of Glenn’s favorites, Katie Olson, who showed him compassion and kindness, which when combined with the friendliness of his classmates and the welcoming of the class as a whole, the anxiety dissipated.  Collazo’s day went swimmingly, and gave him his second first impression.

“I never knew this before the first day of school, but apparently I get hiccups whenever I get nervous sometimes,” Collazo said. “The morning I was in my room with the laptop on and everything and I started to get these hiccups. I was like: ‘What is this? I haven’t gotten hiccups in years and there’s no reason this should be happening.’I had my first class and my hiccups just.. went away. And I talked to my father later on and he said it was likely because of the anxiety I was having.”

Later on in his experience at our school, he had a band meeting, which left him dazed and uncomfortable with the school and it’s labyrinth passages once again. However, over time he came to love the school and its community.

“Because of the COVID situation, It’s put us all in a similar place here it’s a bit more difficult to connect with your classmates and your teachers, but it’s still worth it because you still get a basic feel of how students are, how teachers are, and how difficult classes are going to be. So I can imagine that their situations would be similar to mine.”

In his parting words, Otto provides a small piece of wisdom, one to hopefully help us all and to help us grow as a school, as a community, and as a family.

“Be open-minded,” Callazo said. “High school in general is difficult compared to others and if you’re coming from that kind of shift, it won’t be the same. It’ll inevitably be different. So be open-minded, try new things and talk to new people. I feel like going to Glenn is easier because it comes along with another change from moving from New York to Texas. So I’ve already adapted in the sense that I’ve already had so many changes that it’s not so difficult to make a few more. But that’s why I’ve changed my mindset to be more open to things.”