By Vicky Li ’18, Staff Writer

As they continue to battle against the raging current of homework, assessments, and lectures of the typical NA school day, all the students retreat to their favorite congregational spaces. Hangout areas vary according to the type of person, and more importantly, what grade the person is in. If you’re a freshman trying to get cozy in the senior corridor, you may want to reevaluate where you want to relax after school.

Newark Academy has been kind enough to give us two corridors: the junior corridor and the senior corridor. They could have built two more for the sophomores and the freshmen, but two will have to suffice. The junior and senior corridors live up to their namesake, providing a nice place for juniors and seniors to hang out before and after school. However happy most of the upperclassmen feel in their corridors, some don’t like the environment. An anonymous source described the junior corridor as “a black hole. I stay on the outside because the further you go in, the more anxious and existential you feel. It’s where a very specific group of people hang out.”

Some seniors don’t really care for the existence of the senior corridor. Liz Merrigan, a current senior, sees the congregational space just as “a reliable place to leave my backpack without it getting confiscated.” The underclassmen don’t seem to even bat an eyelash at it either. As a freshman last year and a sophomore this year, I’ve always viewed the senior corridor as the place where I sign in when I’m late, and the junior corridor as the mysterious place I’ve never set foot in.

The freshmen don’t have a designated corridor, but they’ve laid claim over the L for as long as I can remember. After the end of third period, the L is swarmed with ninth graders, hungry for food and grumpy about the fifteen-minute middle-school rule. To add to the chaos, the L was recently closed by some “mysterious” forces; the freshmen were not amused. Some freshmen don’t like the raucous L and the limited seating on the benches. These freshmen choose to study quietly in the library, or enjoy the more spacious and more aesthetically pleasing Arts Wing as their preferred hangout space.

The juniors and seniors have their respective corridors, the freshmen have the L, but what do the sophomores have? Let me answer that question: the sophomores don’t have a hangout place. Sadly enough, the layout of the school did not designate a place for sophomores to hang out, and we are left without a home, destined to roam the hallways like bemoaning ghosts. Allen Zhu ’18 claims that he sits alone in the back left corner of the auditorium, wallowing in his misery and sticking needles into his eyes. (Most of the time, he hangs out in the library.)

The wandering sophomores fly to all corners of the Newark Academy building. When Reshma Kopparapu ’18 was asked where she found herself after school hours, she responded with: “the library, duh.” She was immediately backed by fellow sophomores Antonia Park, Abbey Zhu, and Alena Zhang. Others find themselves in the Great Hall, and the very lost sophomores just meander around, never really finding a spot that holds a special place in their hearts. Many leave school as early as possible or head down to sports, probably heartbroken about the lack of a congregational space. No one truly knows where the sophomores go. Maybe Newark Academy should build a whole building dedicated to sophomores (wink, wink). Maybe the juniors, seniors, and freshmen should cede their claims to the various hangout spaces of the school to the sophomores. Maybe after that, we’ll finally know where they go.