Our Twelve Years: Eight Boys, One Campus, and the Long Habit of Growing Up

Oct 21, 2026

There is a particular kind of graduate at a school that runs from kindergarten to grade twelve: the one who has never known another campus. This year eight of them leave together, with eleven to thirteen years behind them — long enough to have watched buildings go up, to have been taught by a teacher and later by that teacher's former student, and to have changed their handwriting twice.

They are not a type. Between them are a business club founder going to Berkeley, a data scientist heading for Northwestern, a game designer off to NYU, a future bioengineer, a photographer who never appears in his own pictures, and a sports-management student who watches game film for fun. What they share is less photogenic: a routine, a teacher's sentence they still obey, and the knowledge that nobody was going to do it for them.

We asked all eight the same questions. Their answers have been edited only for length.

How long, and what do you miss most?

Han Chenghao, twelve years. Braised aubergine from the canteen. And the path behind the little bridge, where nobody goes — I walk there when I need to think.

Yan Jixin, thirteen years. Cabbage and meatball soup. My bed in the dormitory and the basketball court, in that order — sleeping and moving are the two things I am best at.

Zhang Haoxiang, twelve years. Chive buns. The long straight road next to the north campus courts, where you can see the whole day happening at once.

Li Jiaqi, twelve years. Spinach, in every form the kitchen can manage. Room EE3, where I did most of my actual thinking.

Dong Pengyuan, twelve years. Fruit from the canteen, and the dormitory and the gym.

Chen Zhidao, thirteen years. Barley porridge. The baseball field, even in the cold.

Kang Zhaoxuan, twelve years. Minced pork with aubergine, and the table-tennis and badminton hall.

Zhang Jiawang, eleven years. Dragon fruit, and the AP art room in S9.

You all climbed the same ladder of classes. Did that feel like a ladder?

Most of them passed through the same three stages — a primary stream that began in the bilingual Cardon classes, the bilingual middle school programme, then the 2+4 international stream in high school. The names on the door changed; the faces did not. "By the time I reached grade ten," Han Chenghao says, "half my class had been in my class since I was seven."

A four-part photograph collage of primary school students in uniform with red scarves — Primary school, from the class photograph archive.

What is the one method a teacher left you with?

Han: Finish what has to be finished first, and then play with a clear head. I have used that since primary school.

Yan: Put things back where they belong.

Zhang Haoxiang: Keep smiling. Meet whatever comes optimistically — it costs nothing and it changes the room.

Li Jiaqi: Back up your notes. And by extension, back up everything.

Dong Pengyuan: Use arrows when you take notes. They show you the logic, and later they show you where the logic broke.

Chen Zhidao: When too many tasks land at once, stop for one second, get calm, then work through them in order.

Kang Zhaoxuan: Your own business, done by yourself.

Zhang Jiawang: Play properly when you play, and study properly when you study.

A boy in a school tracksuit standing among autumn trees in a park — Autumn of grade four, on the way back from a class trip.

And what will still be true in twenty years?

Han: Independent thinking, and the ability to move between cultures. Respecting difference is a habit now, not a policy.

Yan: Hold goals lightly and enjoy the chase.

Li Jiaqi: Twelve years in one boarding house gave me friendships that will outlast every school building.

Kang Zhaoxuan: Knowing how to run my own time. The long breaks and the evening study periods were mine to arrange.

What do you remember about the first day?

Yan Jixin: "I wanted to be the first in the class to hand in my homework, so I refused to go to the toilet. I wet myself. That is the entire memory." Dong Pengyuan: "I assumed I would be collected in the evening. Instead that was the night my boarding life began." Zhang Jiawang remembers the marble tiles he stepped around, plane leaves at the edge of the fountain, and three teachers waiting at the gate. He waved at his parents and said, see you on Friday.

A father and his young son smiling together at a table in a canteen — Visiting day, primary school. The canteen was the meeting point for everyone's parents.

What was genuinely difficult?

Li Jiaqi spent a term stuck on the personal essay until a teacher found the thread that made it his. Dong Pengyuan hit a wall on the SAT and could not get past it for two sittings; what moved him was deciding to believe the score would come. Chen Zhidao was waitlisted by his first-choice school and had to build himself back up for the second round. Zhang Haoxiang is candid about his: "I am a bit lazy. I need a push. Fortunately the teachers here never once let up."

A student speaking on a stage lit in purple during a school event — Grade eleven, on stage at an evening event. His classmates filmed it.

A young boy in a waistcoat standing in a primary school classroom — Grade one, dressed for the school concert. Every one of the eight has a photograph like this.

Where are they going?

Han Chenghao to UC Berkeley for sociology and economics; Yan Jixin to Northwestern for data science; Zhang Haoxiang to Michigan, with offers also from Carnegie Mellon, USC and UCL; Li Jiaqi to NYU under Early Decision for game design; Dong Pengyuan to USC, with Illinois and Hong Kong also on the list; Chen Zhidao to Florida; Kang Zhaoxuan to Emory for bioengineering; Zhang Jiawang to UCL and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Twelve years is not a straight line. It is a long sequence of ordinary Tuesdays, and the eight of them spent those Tuesdays in the same corridors. That is the part no application file records.