Off to School!

Trip Start Sep 19, 1973
1
11
21
Trip End Apr 18, 2006


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of United States  , Louisiana,
Saturday, August 20, 1983

In my sophomore year of high school, they announced that the state of Louisiana was going to create a new type of school - the next generation of "magnet" school, publicly funded and located on a college campus. This school was a boarding school for the top students of the state and the competition for it was fierce, with only 200 students out of the entire state being selected to attend the first class in the fall of 1983.

Needless to say, I was lucky enough to be selected as one of those 200 and in August 1983 I traveled Natchitoches (pronounced Nack-a-tish) and the campus of Northwestern State University of LA to become a member of the very first class of the Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts.

The school was truly unique for its time. Two hundred high school juniors who lived in dorms on the college campus, who attended classes at either the high school OR the college, depending on what we needed to complete our curriculum.

Unfortunately, while the school was a fantastic opportunity and one that I wish to this day I could have taken full advantage of, the financial impact of living 250 miles from home was too much for my family at the time, especially with once a month mandatory trips home and the extra expenses of living away from home at that age. So despite my best judgement, I quit school at the end of my junior year, took the ASVAB tests at the local Navy Recruiter's station and joined the Navy.
Print this entry Natchitoches hotels