By: Will Bedwell
Oak Grove High School’s 2009-2010 Star Student Arik Shams stepped off a plane and onto U.S. soil on March 6th, 2008 when he was sixteen years old. Up until that point, Shams lived in Bangladesh with his parents, grandmother, and older sister. His uncle is a professor of mass communication and journalism at the University of Southern Mississippi. This uncle applied for a family visa and citizenship for Shams’ family.
The process took almost ten years when suddenly mail was received that the family could move to the United States, provided they did so within the next six months. “It was a major rush to move to America, as well as being very stressful, we had to leave much of our family and friends behind,” most notably Sham’s grandmother who had lived with her son (Shams’ father) for all of his life, “however it was a move my parents felt necessary in order to allow my sister and I to be provided with the best education and best future possible,” Shams said.
Just before the move, Shams’ sister Tahseen completed the Bangladesh equivalent of high school. She is now currently attending the honors college at the University of Southern Mississippi.
In Bangladesh schools follow the British system of schooling: ten years of ‘ordinary’ school then two years of ‘advanced school.’ Before arriving in the United States, Shams was just about to finish his tenth year. Upon arriving at Oak Grove, he was put into classes and given many tests in order to determine which grade he would be admitted into the following school year. He praises the practicality of U.S. schools when comparing them to Bangladesh’s schools stating, “I’ve learned and memorized facts and formulas for the majority of my school career, but here I get to actually learn why they work and how to use them,” Shams said.
The largest determinate, would be his ACT score that upcoming summer. He made a 30 and was put into the 11th grade. “Looking back on it, I’m glad I was put in the 11th grade as opposed to the 12th because I feel it allowed me to take my time learning and adjusting to American culture before going off the college,” Shams said.
This school year Shams achieved a 33 on the ACT, earning him to be named Star Student. In order to become a Star Student in Mississippi one must be a senior who has made at least a 35 on the ACT or have the highest score at his or her school. He gives credit for this impressive achievement English/humanities teacher Andrea Clark. “Arik came to this school knowing no one, and without pause he began meeting new people and adapting to the culture on day one. This mindset of hitting the ground running here at Oak Grove is what I believe has helped him the most,” Clark said.
“My favorite class I’ve taken in the U.S. would have to be AP American History. Coming here, I knew of the culture, but knew nothing of its background and what had formed it. That class explained so much to me.” Shams stated. When chosen for Star Student, the student is allowed to choose a star teacher: someone they feel helped them the greatest during their high school career. Shams chose history teacher Robert Sutton, he feels Sutton helped explain American history and spur his interest in American culture.
So far, Shams’ has applied to eight colleges. His top four are Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and MIT. Although not absolutely sure of what he wants to study in college, his main interest as of late is Physics. When time for senior projects rolled around, he wrote an extensive paper on dark matter and held a seminar covering its contents to an assembly of fifth graders.
When coming to the U.S., Shams’ family’s largest difficulty was the language barrier. His parents both knew a decent amount of English but not enough to be fluent in southern Mississippi. Even tasks of going to Wal-Mart were tough on them. “The hardest thing to get used to and understand is the southern accent,” Shams stated, “My sister and I can both speak English well, but our main problem is understanding everyday slang.” Shams’ favorite slang word is ‘bad’ in the Will Smith sense in which the word means good. Obvious is the fact that he has been doing very well in school or shall we say doing quite ‘bad.’
Even without understanding all American slang, a bright future seems in store for the newly Americanized Star Student Arik ‘the man’ Shams at which ever school he chooses to grace with his presence.
