Being an International Student at The Peddie School

By Dora Yishan Shen ’27

I want to start by congratulating everyone who’s considering, or has already decided on, Peddie. For many international families, getting here already involves sophisticated logistics, such as visa applications, plane tickets, packing suitcases strategically in a way that still somehow ends up with them being overweight and perhaps some family arguments regarding whether you really need to bring that many hoodies and jackets for the winter. 

The good news? Once you arrive, you naturally evolve to attain the ultimate airport logistical acrobatics. By which I mean carrying three super-dense suitcases you need to sit on to zip up, one carry-on, a backpack, a crossbody bag, and perhaps also a golf bag, with only four limbs.

This is also the moment your parents can no longer remind you in person every morning to wake up, eat breakfast, bring an umbrella or wear more clothes because “it’s cold outside.” This milestone will allow you to unlock the latest winter fashion, which features wearing a single shirt under a puffer jacket in the middle of a snowstorm — a style I once accidentally brought back to China, only to be immediately followed by my mom’s screams.

Adapting to Peddie is not just about learning how to survive New Jersey’s unpredictable weather. It’s also about slowly picking up a whole set of habits, expressions, traditions and routines that make perfect sense to everyone here — and almost no sense at all when you first arrive.

Three years ago, coming to Peddie after the end of COVID restrictions in China made my first impression more or less a gamble. I wasn’t able to visit campus during the application process. I knew I was coming to an American boarding school. I knew I would be living away from my family. I knew there was a higher chance of Peddie beating Blair on Blair Day than the other way around. 

What I did not know was the ritualistic terminology we use here, such as Family Style, DMX and Long Block PCH. And while No Class Saturday and free block may be fairly straightforward, PSIT sounds more like the misspelled abbreviation for Preliminary SAT than a basketball game. Like these inscrutable vocabularies, there are parts of Peddie culture that people outside our community would have trouble understanding. For instance, they might not get why everyone suddenly becomes intensely attentive in Chapel when Head’s Holiday is about to be announced, or why, after the final quarter of the Blair Day football game, everyone rushes onto the field to chant “Ala Viva.”

There are countless small things that nobody thinks to explain, because after you have been here for a while, you start to perceive the uniqueness as normality. And perhaps that is the point when you realize you have truly become part of the culture.

I think the answer is yes — but fitting in goes both ways.

One of the best things about coming to a school with such a diverse community is that, while you gradually become part of Peddie, you also leave a piece of yourself here for the rest of us.

Your background is not something you have to set aside temporarily while you’re at Peddie. You should always bring it with you.

At the same time, be curious about other people. One of the strange and wonderful things about boarding school is that people who would probably never have met otherwise suddenly eat breakfast together, rehearse together, play sports together, study together, and occasionally climb the stairs together to their first-block morning class on the third floor of Annenberg Hall.

Some of my closest relationships here actually came from places I never expected. And some of the experiences I value most began with simply saying yes to something I never imagined myself doing. For instance, I originally came here to join the renowned Peddie robotics team. However, I ended up playing percussion for the winter musical, and now my band performs an average of 12+ times for the community each year. Similarly, I originally planned to focus on biology and learn Spanish. Now I’m part of the Language Signature Program, where I focus on the analysis of classical texts and the acoustics of ancient amphitheaters.

My advice to you: Say yes a little more often than you normally would.

If you are homesick, that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision by coming here. You can miss home and love being here at the same time. The feelings may seem contradictory, but eventually, one day, without really noticing when it happened, the Weather and Find My apps on your phone will start recording 201 South Main Street, Hightstown, New Jersey, as “Home.”

Being an international student doesn’t mean you leave one community to join another. Instead, your world gets bigger.

So why not take advantage of that? Make mistakes. Ask questions. Try new things. Get lost on campus — although, realistically, Peddie isn’t big enough for that to last very long.

To parents: thank you for trusting this community with someone who matters enormously to you. Leaving your child thousands of miles away cannot be easy. But I hope that over the next few years, when they come home, you will notice something. Maybe they speak up more. Maybe they finally know how to do laundry. Or maybe they somehow learn to fit three suitcases’ worth of stuff into one. I cannot promise the last one, since it does take some talent. But I can promise that they will grow.

And hopefully, when you leave Peddie in four years — which will pass by super fast — you will not simply have learned more about America, but also more about your peers, more about the world, and, most importantly, more about yourselves.

Ala Viva!