Many new students from all over the world join the student population each year, and this year is no exception.

According to the new student enrollment administrator Kay Bradley, out of the new foreign transfer students that have enrolled this year, there are “twice as many ninth graders compared to any other grade.”

She further explained her perspective of why their is a larger population of freshmen. “The reason I believe that this is true [is] because most parents feel like it’s better for their students to start fresh as a freshman and have a full four-year experience of one school,” Bradley said.

Sellina Yoo, a freshman who moved from South Korea about a month ago, said that the biggest challenge for her is the language change. According to Yoo, the way to overcome this challenge is by “talking more (in English), making more friends and studying English.”

Grant Lee, another freshman who recently moved from South Korea, is facing the same challenges as Yoo.

“I am not a fluent speaker, and the hardest thing is reading English and speaking English,” Lee said. “(The way to) overcome this for me is by not speaking Korean.”

The biggest difficulty for these new students is the language, but they are still able to adapt by finding other students who speak the same native language. This way they are able to express their feelings and get a better understanding of what is going on around the school.

Bradley said that from her observations, new foreign transfer students are happy and have been enjoying themselves because of the help and friendliness shown by fellow students.

“Our student body as a whole tends to be very outgoing and warm to each other because they have experienced what it is going to be like [to be new],” Bradley said.