Cara was frankly scared when she joined a class of only 12 students in Grade 5 at
Pickering College. "I had come from a school where there were 40 in my class," she says. "I never felt so exposed. Everyone (in her new class) knew everyone else's name. It was an eye-opener for me."
At her old school, she had been getting Cs and Bs. "My first year, there were ups and downs," she remembers. "I didn't think when I came here that I was capable of achieving the honour roll."
She credits small classes and two teachers in particular with giving her the confidence to succeed-a biology teacher and a history teacher. By graduation this past summer, she was a straight-A student and student committee president.
"I don't think it's necessarily intelligence," she says. "It's effort. Hard work and determination get you where you want to go." She becomes thoughtful: "If I hadn't come here, I don't think I would have been the same person."
It's a few days before graduation. After eight years at
Pickering College, Cara is off to study history at the University of Ottawa. "(Leaving) will probably be the saddest day of my life," she says, "and the most exciting."
