senior thesis
It Will Always Be There
The Summer Before
Early in my research, someone mentioned in casual conversation that “if you were happy with your high school, you wouldn’t be in a rush to get out.” Over the course of interviews, I found this to be overwhelmingly true. Very few RHPers were content in high school. Most were bored, unhappy with their classmates, and felt like outsiders at the top of their classes. Many RHPers were also experiencing family problems which caused a great desire to leave home. Whether their journey was 20-minute drive, or a flight across the country, going to USC provided an escape.
Even before arriving at USC, this RHP class began to connect with one another. Over the summer of 1998, profile sheets were sent to each student from the RHP office. They included such standard questions as “what is your favorite movie?” and “what are your hobbies?” -- but also very RHP-specific questions, such as “what is the hardest/easiest thing to leave behind for RHP?” After filling out these questionnaires and mailing them back to the office, packets with everyone’s photocopied responses were mailed to each student.
While the questionnaires are sent to every RHP class, the class of 1998 took them one step further. From the information on the sheets, someone compiled an e-mail list and began a series of mass e-mails. These mass e-mails continued throughout the summer, allowing RHPers to get to know each other through letters, instant messages, and chat rooms. These interactions covered a wide variety of topics: conversations about Thematic Option and other classes, surveys about drug experience, comparisons of packing lists, and speculations about roommate pairings, just to name a few.
Interestingly, most of the e-mails dealt with the past and the future rather than standard teen conversations about current movies, relationships, etc. This can be read as reflecting what RHPers had in common (their future together at USC, and their pasts as high-achievers) despite their differences in interests and summer experiences. However, I believe it tells a great deal about the mind set of RHPers in their last summer at home. Everyone was eager to get to college as soon as possible. E-mail provided a valuable connection to others who were just as eager. Questions about experiences, tastes, and plans boiled down to the age-old adolescent worries of “am I normal?”, and “will I fit in?”. Being able to ask these questions -- and receive positive, supportive answers from classmates -- alleviated some of the fear of the unknown that faced all RHPers, whether they admitted it or not.
While many people consider the summer e-mails to be inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, I believe that the sense of connection they helped create was a major factor in setting the stage for the formation of a social group. Because our summer “virtual” interactions were in the form of mass e-mails, it was natural for later “real-life” interactions to be carried out on a large scale as well. (it should not be assumed that the e-mails were all on a large scale; from the mass-mails, many people began individual conversations on subjects they had in common. However, this also reflects the later social structure.)