Interview with Prestige School - Toronto Campus Alum, Valeriia Tverdokhlibova

One thing that differentiates Prestige School from other schools is that there’s a lot of spoken Russian, but it doesn't mean that if you don't speak Russian you're not going to understand what's going on. For example, when I was in Grade 10, I didn't really know any terms in English, in terms of mathematics, science, etc. So when I was in science class and I knew the answer to the question because I understood the question, but I didn't know how to say it in English there was a Russian teacher who was educating us. He was teaching us in English, but he also spoke Russian. So I told him the answer in Russian and he translated into English.

Another thing that makes Prestige School different is that we had a lot of fun together and it's a big family. Especially if you miss your family. If you're nervous, if you're stressed, if you think that you're not going to feel like you're in the right place I should tell you you will feel like you’re part of a family.

I would say friendly, understanding, and fun are three words that describe Prestige School. I've studied for a very long time in Ukraine—until I was 14. I've never felt as important as a person, as a student here as I did in Canada. It's different at Prestige. So if you ask a teacher, ‘Sorry, Miss or Sir, I don't understand what you just said. I don't understand this topic,’ they will be understanding. They will tell you what they mean by this. They will explain it one more time for you if you don't understand.

Prestige School is fun because there are a lot of outside of school activities. We had this really interesting thing. Once a year there is an international cafe and it's really interesting. You do it during lunch, you do it after school and every year it's different people and you just get to know every single one of them. It's a lot of activities and it's fun. I liked it.

At Prestige School they really do want to prepare you for the upcoming years that you're going to spend in college and university. Because it's a small private school, it's not too many people, compared to public schools. Our principal and vice-principal and the teachers, they give you advice if you don't know what you should do, what courses you should focus on, what courses you should or shouldn't take. They don't tell you what to do. They just give you advice so that you can think about it. And it helped me to choose the program that I went to, even though I'm still not sure if I belong there.

I was surprised that Prestige School had a lot of international students, especially from China, Korea and Ukraine. Even a lot of students from my hometown, which is surprising. You just sit in class and someone says something and you're like, ‘Are you from my hometown?’ And he or she says, ‘Yes.’ It happened many times and I was surprised. So there are a lot of international students. As I said, there was lots of spoken Russian and Mandarin. I would go back and forth between my native language and English. It was really good practice for me. I thought it was going to be just Canadian students, just like in the movies, but it wasn't.

A typical student in Prestige would be the one who can answer any question. No matter what question you ask a student, they will always know the answer. I'm not sure why. Maybe everyone's very confident. Lots of students were like that. They just read it and they could answer the question right away. I'm not like that, unfortunately. It takes me a while to read something, analyze it, and then understand what's going on.

At Prestige School, we're all in the same place. It's not that many people, but from high school, we were all just talking. We weren't close, close friends, but we were just typical classmates. With some of them I still keep in touch, but some of them were just classmates. I didn't experience any bullying or drama or anything like that.

Well, I think Prestige School definitely changed me in a way. It didn’t change me drastically, but I think I became a bit more confident than I was before. I was very, very shy at the beginning, and then when I came to Prestige, it was just so easy. You don't have to be shy. Why would you be shy? So that made me more confident. My English level definitely went up from the very beginning.

At Prestige, teachers always care about your opinion, no matter whether they like your opinion or not. Maybe they have it differently, but they will always ask for your opinion. That was a bit surprising for me because you could say whatever you want about this issue or that issue and you were allowed to do it. It made me more open, too. So I became more confident and more open at Prestige School.

I had different expectations about the school because I didn't know it would be this small. I thought there would be more people coming to school, so if I were to change something about the school I would make it bigger. I would also probably change the gym. I would probably add gym equipment. Just a little renovation, I guess, would be helpful.

In college, you have to know everything by yourself and you have to be prepared because you are a grown up person and you have to choose everything by yourself. Now that I've finished the first year in college I look back at Prestige and, gosh, I miss it because they would literally explain everything to you.

I think the first reason to choose Prestige School would be you will not be alone. Whether you're shy or not, you will always find a person to talk to. If you're upset, people will see it, the teachers will see it, the staff will see it and they care about you so much. They will ask you, ‘How should I help you?’ or ‘Do you want me to give you advice? Do you want to tell us about your problems?’ The number one reason would be that they care about you a lot. Again, you're part of the family. The second reason is mathematics. Even though I'm still not a big fan of math, the school provides more courses and a more mathematical curriculum. Finally, because it's a private school, it's smaller. Every single person is taken care of and they help every single student. They want to make sure that you've got it all going, that you've got all the courses you need, all the 40 hours of volunteering and everything. At Prestige, if you're missing something, they will tell you.