This year, high school students taking Mandarin I must do so at PMS alongside middle school students. This happened three years ago, but did not happen again until this year.

Sophomore Keith Sibal takes Mandarin I at the middle school this year.

“Being in a class with middle schoolers is pretty fun sometimes,” Sibal said. “It has also put me in a class with my eighth-grade sister, which has never happened before.”

Senior Claire Lim took Mandarin I at the middle school three years ago when she was a freshman.

“It was different because we had to have an extra elective that we had to go to every day while we waited for the middle school class to start,” Lim said.

Sibal said there are cons to the class being at the middle school.

“The fact that the middle school has a different schedule than the high school made it a bit confusing at first,” Sibal said. “Since the Mandarin I/BC class is every day except for Wednesday, and only fifty or seventy-seven minutes, I had to sign up for TA for second period, which I hadn’t planned for.”

Sibal said that incidentally, it indirectly introduced him to TA-ing in the Food Service Kitchen, which is super fun and something he never would have done if not for having to compromise the middle school schedule.

“On F and G days we wouldn’t have short days because the middle school didn’t have the same schedule,” Lim said.

But Lim said that she thinks the new schedule will definitely help because the students will not have to wait on F and G days, and the classes will start at the same time.

“The middle school still starts at 7:55, meaning I have to go to school five minutes earlier,” Sibal said. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it makes my mornings just that much more hassled.”

Lim said that the only thing that will affect the students is the extra walk and having middle school memories.

Sibal said that it is Mandarin’s reputation for being the hardest language that puts a lot of people off from signing up for it.

“When I signed up for Mandarin I, I actually had no idea that I’d be with my sister at the middle school,” Sibal said. “Even if I had known it was at the middle school, I probably still would have signed up for it.”

Sibal said that his favorite part of it being at the middle school is the fun and youthful atmosphere with the middle schoolers, and that it is just not the same with his high school classes.