Interview with Fieldstone School Alum, Adham Ragab
Adham Ragab graduated from Fieldstone School in 2019. He credits Fieldstone with helping him really understand who he is as a human being. He appreciates the diversity that the international student body brings to Fieldstone. He initially selected Fieldstone because of the Cambridge Program, but now he appreciates how well prepared he was for university and for life thanks to his time there.
Highlights from the interview
When I joined Fieldstone School, the thing that caught my eye the most was just how much everyone was willing to help out each other and how much everyone was willing to be there for students. And especially on the staff side, taking the time out of the day to get to know the students. And it really did develop a family environment in which students could feel safe.
Having a home away from home was crucial to helping the students not only get more integrated within Canada, but also perform academically better and develop new interests. With a school like Fieldstone, where there are a lot of international students, I think it really did help develop that feeling within students, at least for me.
The fact that Fieldstone School is predominantly full of international students does make it more of an environment where you get to see some diversity compared to other schools where that might not necessarily be as much of a case. I haven't really seen that ever anywhere else.
I think Fieldstone School is very open to different people, not only just in terms of race, but in terms of who they are as human beings. Whatever you are, whether you're interested in music or you're interested in sports or engineering like I was, there's always an avenue to explore.
There's always something that you could try out at Fieldstone School. They did really have that opportunity for everyone to really explore what they wanted and what they felt like would lead them in their future.
You can really see that graduates of Fieldstone understand who they are as human beings and who they want to be and what they want to do in the future. I think that not a lot of schools provide people with the opportunity to really discover who they are and what they want to do. Not even just figuratively or metaphorically, but literally, the school has a lot of opportunities where people can go out and do different things that they might not have thought of doing, and it can definitely open your eyes in different ways.
Fieldstone School really pushes the idea that people are stronger together, and really founds itself on that belief. That is definitely something that is seen in the day-to-day operation of the schools. One thing that certainly surprised me was that I did not expect staff and students to have that close of a relationship. Obviously, that's not necessarily something you can easily advertise anywhere. It really developed from the people who have built the place and from the people who are in that place day to day.
Something that really surprised me and really made me happy being part of Fieldstone School was that you felt comfortable. You felt comfortable being there. You felt comfortable talking to teachers, not only about things that went on in school, but things going on in your personal life and not really in the way that you would have felt in a lot of schools. Personally, I've lived in several countries. I've lived in Saudi Arabia, I've lived in Spain, and I haven't really experienced that with any of the schools that I've been to before.
Fieldstone School really helped me understand and then develop a strong sense of identity, a strong sense of what I want to achieve in life. And that has really had a profound impact, not only just pursuing what is the most advantageous for me, but pursuing something that will truly make me feel like I am who I am and really allow me to enjoy everything that I can bring to the table.
That sense of identity and that drive and that ambition really stem from the way that Fieldstone School really pushes students to think and really pushes students to approach not just their academic life, but also their own life. I was unfortunately at the school for only a year. I came to Canada in my final year of high school. I think I would have enjoyed more years at the school because that year was such an extremely positive year for me.
The reason I joined the Fieldstone School was because of the Cambridge program. I knew about it coming in. But now I appreciate that the school really helped prepare me for life after high school, life in university. I didn't really appreciate just how prepared I was and just how prepared it has made me for the next stage in life.
At Fieldstone, you get to really express who you are without fearing that you have to act in a very specific way. Obviously, you have to act with proper conduct, but you don't have to conform. You can truly be who you are.
Fieldstone might not be the biggest school. It might not be the most well-known school, but it'd definitely be the school where your child will grow the most and truly be themselves the most.
