Everybody has a reason for choosing Lakeside. Families make a deliberate decision — with many investing almost $200,0000 over four years — because they believe it offers opportunities beyond what a public school can provide.
Lakeside counselor Serena Swanson says that Lakeside students especially “want to give back somehow or want to make the world better … [They want to] make themselves academically strong and learn how to be a leader.” She also admits that many students “do come here hoping to get into a good college. ”
When people think of Lakeside, the school’s distinguished alumni, prestigious college results, and accomplished students often come up. By the perceptions of people from outside the school, Lakeside is a place defined by stress and competitiveness. And that’s not far from the truth. Beneath the polished image of success lie many sacrifices: the joy of learning has been overshadowed by constant pressures to perform well. Unlike other schools, Lakeside’s unique combination of workload and expectations fuels this loss of purpose.
Ms. Swanson worked at multiple other Seattle public schools, saying that the average workload there was 45 minutes. According to a Tatler poll of 89 students, Lakeside averages 2.61 hours of homework per night. That’s not including the hours of sports practices, coupled with violin lessons and math competitions. And it becomes pretty normal for people to say things like, “Some weeks, I feel like I’m in a pressure cooker wind tunnel with pinecones being thrown at me.”
Many Tatler poll responses shared a similar feeling of stress about workload. As one student wrote: “I have no life because of [the workload]. I have no time for myself or anything fun.” Another student wrote that “the pressure is so constant, even the subject that I used to love starts to feel like boxes that I have to check. I go into like survival mode; where I’m not really absorbing anything and I’m just trying to get through it.”
Studying, learning, and engaging in extracurricular activities is great. Improving yourself and preparing for the future is important, but enjoying and finding purpose in what you are doing matters just as much. When so many students consistently speak about overwhelming stress at Lakeside, it suggests there is a deeper issue that prevents students from actually fully engaging with and enjoying their learning.
Expectation plays a huge role in loss of purpose as well. Apart from just doing the work, we as Lakesiders believe we should excel at it. This expectation is an inherent byproduct of Lakeside’s admission system. One Tatler poll respondent wrote that their academic stress is “definitely an ego thing—wanting to end high school with a GPA I am satisfied with.”
This school is designed for the most high-achieving, hardworking students to push each other to reach new heights. In many ways, this environment is great. It’s amazing to work hard to refine your skills and achieve your goals. Ms. Swanson says, “The happiest students are value-driven, know themselves, and have a true sense of purpose behind what they do”.
The problem arises when the standard is set so high that only perfection satisfies students. Ms. Swanson defines perfectionism as “match[ing] a blanket set of standards that may or may not apply to your life.” She criticizes perfectionism as “a major barrier to” feeling fulfilled. When all of your hard work is simply going to maintaining a high GPA or maximizing extracurricular activities for college, our hobbies become burdens. We lose our passion and just become mindless robots that go through assignment after assignment, doing things just for the sake of accomplishing them.
Ms. Swanson explains that Lakesiders’ perfectionism and subsequent loss of purpose is exacerbated by comparison culture: “comparing oneself to others and then feeling like it’s really hard to measure up to other people’s accomplishments.” You can be really happy to learn a concept in math and feel really good about it, only to realize that there are 10 math olympiad winners in your class. In an environment filled with high achievers, it’s really easy to disregard your own personal learning and fulfillment and instead just do things based on external pressure. Ms. Swanson explains “that is always going to be a challenge” at Lakeside.
All that being said, Lakeside students definitely do enjoy their time here. Many students find fulfillment in learning. But, often, students find that their hard work, fueled by expectations and an intense workload, is just going towards surface-level definitions of success and not their true passion.
Lakeside is built upon their motto: “Tibi seris, tibi metis” — You get out what you put in. These four years can be an endless scramble to get the highest test scores and get into the best college: just a bridge to reach your destination. But they can also be something more. With the amazing opportunities and people here to make these four years memorable. It’s important that we work for our passions, so that one day, you can look back and smile at the curiosity for learning that brought you so far.
So, think about this again: what is your reason for going to Lakeside?
