By Matt Banwart

I had the opportunity to shadow a day at Iowa City West High School on Nov. 6. As I walked into the office the first thing I noted was a button on the receptionist’s desk with the text “West is Best” written in the school’s colors green and white. Similar to many high schools, West students take a lot of pride in their school, and with around 2000 students, that’s a lot of pride!

However with all those students come problems. During my day at West, I experienced the worst crowding I’ve ever been in. Running into other people is something that happens daily. In fact, in some classes not enough seats are available and students have to sit on the ground. However, despite overcrowding, students seem to have mastered the problem and easily flow from one class to another in a timely manner.

Although there are some disadvantages to having one of the biggest student bodies in Iowa, there are plenty of advantages. Iowa City West offers an abundance of clubs, varying from weightlifting and chess clubs to Pokemon, E-sports, and Zombie clubs. They even clubs based around political beliefs. The school recently won a grant allowing every room to be equipped with smart boards. Although the building itself is not in the best of shape, the students have easy access to computers, and other learning tools.

Many people in smaller communities commonly make assumptions about bigger communities not being as close together. While at West I noticed that people were really close with each other, as long as they were in the same social cliques. So although the entire school may not know who you are, you still have a strong friend community.

In addition It’s rare for a student to be in multiple clubs at once (unlike in Mount Vernon.) The students took more individual pride in their clubs and activities. West’s Journalism class was almost completely student run. The students appeared to really excel at it because they really cared about the quality of paper they made, The West Side Story.

I wish the best of luck to those who I met during my shadow, thanks for the experience.