Alumni
When I started studying at ISO, I was expecting to become very good at English. It was a big challenge for me to study the whole high school in a foreign l...
At fifteen, I was clear about the future, I would be a physicist. I started ISO rather out of inertia – from the basics I had a solid knowledge of English, which would be a shame to lose. My parents believed in the local non-traditional style of teaching, on the other hand, I was quite sensitive to the stigma of private schools as an easier variant of state schools, so I was afraid that they would not teach me everything I would then need.
From the beginning, I didn’t really understand the local lessons. Why not just write a test for Shakespeare? Why do we have to work it out dramatically for that? And in addition to our performance, to design flyers? Why does the school replace our regular days from time to time with several-day workshops on a current topic? I perceived it as fun, but as a result it is only a distraction from proper study.
Only later did I realize the main advantage of such an interdisciplinary approach. It is trying to prepare us for the world as it is. A world that is colorful, in which something is constantly happening, and which is not cut into closed fields, as is the case between the walls of high schools and universities.
And yet one does not have to worry about not getting to the material covered in the traditional curriculum. My teachers were heartthrobs. Boring, encyclopedic knowledge from textbooks was able to give a playful, interesting form. Thanks to them, I was excited about things that were completely foreign to me even in my freshman year. It was probably because they helped me see the connection between the subject matter and the real world.
In the end, I went to science. But it was no longer as easy a decision as I thought in freshman year. I’m at the Faculty of Nuclear Physics now, but I can just as easily imagine going to journalism, architecture, translation or philosophy. And such opportunities and enthusiasm were given to me by my gympl …
And I’m not talking about the fact that in all this one can still really learn English, can participate in various international programs, and is in a very visually pleasing environment.
