It’s the first day of your freshman year of high school. You just had lunch, which was quite terrifying experience, and you’re really regretting getting both pizza and french fries. Your stomach is in huge knot because you have to go to this thing called advisory. You’re kind of confused about the whole concept, all you really know is that you’ll be seeing whoever the people are in that room every day for twenty minutes for the next four years of your life. You walk in, scan the room and you’re terrified. Sure, you’ve gone to school with these people for at least three years but none of them are your…friends. You’ve never even had a class with some of them, let alone a conversation. It’s going to be a rough four years.

Or maybe not.

The Woodland advisory program is suppose to create a place for students that provides them with academic and personal support. The goal of these daily meetings is to foster communication, team building, trust and self-esteem skills. But it does so much more than that. Woodland’s advisory program has a unique impact on the way students interact.

Advisory provides a chance to meet new people. Sure students see most of their peers on a daily basis, this doesn’t mean that they have class or a chance to get to know them all.  Because advisory is totally randomized, it allows students to interact with people who wouldn’t normally.

“Basically advisory sticks kids that would otherwise never talk to each other in the same environment,” said senior Drew Chura. “It challenges you to interact with new people and ultimately brings you together.”

Advisory also helps eliminate clique barriers because it gives students a chance to meet new people. The friendships made in advisory expand past the walls of the room they meet in.

“I wouldn’t have met some of my best friends if it wasn’t for advisory” said senior Clara Atallah.

Not to mention that you see these people every single day, constantly being together almost forces friendship. Whether its from playing team building games or just having conversations that the group can to relate, strong relationships form over time.

“Freshman year I had no idea how close my advisory would become,” said senior Emma Sardinskas. “But just being together every day has really made us all friends.”

So don’t panic, fast forward  a few years and those so called strangers will be anything but.