For most teenagers, freshman year of college marks the first time they move away from home to attend school, live in a dormitory and make friends from all over the world. For me, this experience came in my freshman year as well — of high school.

I decided to leave University City to attend Fasman Yeshiva High School in Skokie, Ill., based not only on the chance to attend a school where I could live in a dorm, but also because of its educational opportunities in secular (with outstanding math and social studies departments) and Talmud studies.

Avi Kleinman, the head dorm counselor at Fasman Yeshiva, said dorm-living is an education in itself. 

“The gap in maturity and individuality between dormers and non-dormers, generally speaking, is shocking,” said Kleinman. “The dorm trains students to share, to be considerate of their classmates and to have an appreciation of nice things that are done for them.”

The decision to leave the comforts of home was not an easy one, but it has definitely benefitted me. When others ask what the dorm experience is like, I tell them a story in which I nearly feared for my life.

During my freshman year at Fasman Yeshiva, two friends and I decided to go to Navy Pier in downtown Chicago on a bitterly cold Sunday afternoon. Having no access to a car, we took a bus downtown, and continued on two different subway lines before finally reaching our destination. When we left, we came back to our bus stop, but the bus was late. 

In a shady neighborhood, with night having fallen hours before, we huddled together in an iffy Subway restaurant for 45 minutes before the bus arrived to take us back to the school. We each spent at least $20 dollars on a trip that resulted in only an hour or two at the Pier itself. 

Still, all three of us remember the intimate details of this experience nearly three years later because it was our first truly independent experience. We not only learned how to take risks, but also that the best possible decision was often the safest. Learning how to be self-reliant in a dangerous scenario was important as well. Our destinies were entirely under our control. 

 “I love the freedom of caring for myself,” said Ezra Schwarz, a fellow classmate. As a pescetarian, fending for himself in an environment where dinner is always a meat dish was difficult, yet he controlled his own fate by making his own food and frequenting the health food market across the street. 

This aspect of independence is key to survival and asserting oneself as an individual in a completely new environment. “The lines blur between friends and family,” Ezra said.

One bonus of joining a new community is an ability to affect the people there. Through chesed (charity) and other work in Chicago, specifically with organizations such as Yachad and Chai Lifeline, I feel as if I have had a positive impact on the community. 

In addition, my involvement with Jewish organizations in the St. Louis community (like NCSY and Young Israel), allows me to get a feel for Jews of all walks of life. The contrast between having three huge Jewish communities in different suburbs of Chicago and a much smaller (but still 60,000-strong!) one in St. Louis is definitely felt, though Chicago can still feel intimate and St. Louis can still feel large. 

When basketball, the great equalizer, is played between the Jewish schools in Chicago, a sense of togetherness in the midst of competitiveness is never more present. And the unique aspect of camaraderie present within the dormitory has been vital to my growth.

Next year, I will head off to an as-yet-unknown college that promises, among other things, a dormitory chock-full of students from around the world who do not know what it is like to live away from home. My advantage of having already experienced this transition will not only help me but will also allow me to help others struggling to make the transition. 

“The general rule is that you can’t take things too seriously,” Kleinman said. “Freshmen, in particular, are interesting because they have not assimilated as a class…[T]his is their first experience being in constant close contact with someone outside their family. [T]hey don’t really appreciate each other as people at this point and there’s a lot of friction that develops because of this.” 

The difficulty of working together and functioning as a group is palpable, and the scariness of the situation can sometimes override logical thought. However, the need to power through it and embrace friendship are the keys to thriving in this new environment, and lessons learned from the close-knit community at Fasman leave me well-equipped to do so.