BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Boarding school: A home away from home

By Prisha Shivani, age 17 | July 25, 2025

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AT HOME IN TWO PLACES Prisha Shivani, an incoming senior at Andover, a boarding school in Massachusetts and Buzz summer intern, reflects on how she made the decision to go to boarding school for high school, and how she’s found a second home. Pictured are Prisha and her father, Sachin Kumar, in front of her dorm at school.

When I tell people in Houston that I go to a boarding school in Massachusetts, I’m often asked what I did to deserve such a punishment. In Texas, you don’t hear about many people going 2000 miles away for high school, but I made the decision based on the countless opportunities it would open up, and how academically challenging it is known to be. Besides this, all I knew was that I would need a winter jacket, a mattress topper, and a pair of shower shoes.

The week before leaving Houston for my freshman year at boarding school in Massachusetts was both stressful and surreal. Mounds of clothes sat on my room’s floor waiting to be packed, and a list of tasks to complete filled my notes app. I quickly realized when I arrived that, although I had packed everything and checked all my boxes, nothing could prepare me for the reality of boarding school. The snow was unfamiliar, I was in a dorm of people I barely knew, and my classes were ten times harder.

Despite my first impression, I trusted the process and stayed. I built a routine, and the unfamiliar feeling began to thaw. I learned how to layer to stay warm, procrastination meant spending late nights in my friends' rooms, and the pace of the curriculum became familiar. People often ask me if I feel homesick, and I do. However, when you have two homes, homesickness is perpetual. Whether I’m in Houston or at Andover, I know there’s another place in the world that is also mine.

Now as a rising senior, I’m glad to say that I love my school, and the experiences I’ve had there are the reason I developed into the person I am today. I’m grateful for the school around me, mostly the people I’ve met and moments I’ve had along the way.

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