Is There Any Truth to Student Stereotypes? → By Cayte Akamu (‘25) FEATURE
HBA alumni and current students are familiar with the stereotype that students at the school are “nerdy” and less socially adept than students at other schools. Also, there is a public perception that HBA is an academically rigorous and homework-heavy school. The Eagle Eye wanted to find out what students thought about these assumptions and if they saw themselves in the same way.
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The Eagle Eye conducted a survey of 337 HBA high school students asking them to rate from 1 (Not true) to 5 (Very true) what they thought about HBA students as a whole when it came to stereotypes. Then they were asked to use the same scale to rate themselves. Interestingly, when it came to social skills and being sheltered, the survey results showed that many students felt that the stereotypes were true in general but not true of themselves as individuals. In other words, many students who chose 4 or 5 (Very true) for the group stereotype rated themselves as 1-2 (Not true) when asked if they fit the stereotype. Kamden Kaneshiro-Takeuchi, a junior, believes that as a small private school with a majority-Asian culture, students are definitely sheltered. However, Brenden Ahuna, also a junior, believes that HBA’s small school size actually helps the students develop social skills as it’s not overwhelmingly big. Another junior, Kaipo Danner, added, “I don’t know what everyone does in their free time...quite a lot of them act a little more reserved or just a little different from students at other schools, but as long as they’re happy...” Ally Low, a junior, believes that having a very involved administration and faculty inadvertently keeps students sheltered. “They tend to keep everything pretty orthodox and try to keep all of the bad stuff out, which isn’t bad. But they keep everything centered around HBA and I think that because of that, a lot of [students] just stay in their bubble,” she said. In addition, Caleb Piech, high school Science teacher, thinks that students who spend a lot of time online and don’t socialize outside of HBA are in danger of being out of touch. “Many have lives that are only engaged with HBA. This can be sheltering because the HBA community is just a small snapshot of the world that they will exist in after high school,” he said.
Snapshots of high school students taken by HBA’s Communications and Public Relations department. While these photos depict different aspects of student life, in reality, do students mostly spend their time in the books, as the stereotypes say? PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF HBA’S COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT
Not all students think that HBA students are uniquely differently from other private school students. Tyler Yamanoha, a sophomore, said, “I don’t think that [the lack of social skills] applies to many people here. I think that everyone is pretty well socially adjusted.” Ahuna added, “The perception could be partially true, but not fully because I believe that most of us can socialize well.” When it comes to spending more than the recommended time on homework per day, more than 50% of students report that that is true. (The school recommends that high schoolers spend no more than 2.5 hours on average per day on homework if they do not
Facing Page: Infographic by Cayte Akamu (‘25)