By ERICK LIVINGSTON, Student Reporter
People have debated for years: Should they move to a big city or small town after college?
Throughout my life, I’ve lived in small towns, suburbs, ghettos and big cities.
They all had advantages and disadvantages. The first big city that I lived in was in Maricopa, Arizona, which was roughly 20 to 30 miles from Phoenix.
I lived there for my junior year of high school, and it was easily the best year of high school for me. Maricopa High School had many clubs and extracurricular activities to do. There was an auto shop club, a ping-pong team, an E-sports team and a multitude of sports offered as well.
Those are just a few things to do. The teachers were also very approachable and nice to talk to. To this day, I keep in contact with my drama teacher.
The schools also had relatively few restrictions with clothing and hair, etc.
Imagine my shock when I went to Laverne, Oklahoma, for my senior year and had to cut my hair to join extracurriculars.
Diversity is also a major thing in big cities. You will meet people from anywhere in a big city. I became friends with a foreign exchange student from Germany. He once brought homemade blood sausage. I admit I did not eat it.
With so many cultures and personalities around, it can be confusing, but it’s worth becoming friends and learning from the people you will meet.
There is so much variety with food in big cities as well and grocery stores that sell all kinds of ingredients.
My favorite restaurant to eat at was a hibachi/sushi restaurant that my friends and I would go to after school.
Not everything is sunshine and rainbows, however. It’s very easy for fights to happen. When I got off the bus in the morning and got my breakfast, I would see a fight at least twice a week. The school also had a full staff of security officers.
Maricopa High School also had an intimidating campus that had 2000 to 2500 students each year, with a teaching staff of more than 70 teachers.
Because of the amount of students, it’s difficult to get more help with academics from your own teachers. Deadlines were also set in stone.
The best thing about big cities, in my opinion, is definitely the school events: homecoming, basketball and football games and the pep rallies. But the crown jewel of the year was prom.
For my junior prom, the school rented the Phoenix Art Museum.
There, they had a full buffet, a professional DJ, a ballroom dance floor and an outdoor silent prom, where you would wear headphones to listen to music.
You could also walk around the museum and look at the art.
Big city life is not for everyone. But if you like having options for a day off or meeting new and exciting people, then I recommend moving to one.