Roll out of bed, take a quick shower, and head over to the dining hall for breakfast. Made-to-order omelets with a friend, one last review of your presentation notes, and you’re ready to meet the day head-on.

Make yourself comfortable. This Centennial math classroom includes modular furniture, writable desks, a short throw projector, and an idea wall. You’ll be here for the next 80 minutes, calculating how much load a suspension bridge can tolerate with six other classmates. Later on, in English, you’ll be revising an original short story called Hilltop Zombie Apocalypse. Then, in entrepreneurship, you and your team will be pitching an idea for solar energy to a visiting alumnus who specializes in renewables.

Twice a week the whole school gathers in Clark Memorial Chapel for a spiritual refresh. Today two seniors are delivering chapel talks, an annual rite of passage for every member of the sixth form. There are no assigned topics and no specific requirements, save one: stand up and say something you mean. It sounds scary, we know, but you’ll have plenty of time to prepare before it’s your turn. After chapel, don’t forget to give each of the speakers a quick hug. It’s tradition.

You’ve been working hard and your brain is starting to get full. It happens. With two classes, a chapel service, and a sit-down lunch in the books, now is the time to switch gears and relax a little. Today you’re meeting with your math teacher for extra help. That question about how much load a bridge can handle is turning out to be harder than you anticipated, but you don’t have to figure it out alone. Tomorrow this is your club block. Don’t forget you’ll be planning our upcoming Relay for Life event.

When your third and final class ends, your day is just beginning. On your way down to the lacrosse field you happen to pass your roommate headed to rehearsal in Hard Auditorium. Different ways to spend your time, but the lessons are the same. At Pomfret, friendships are forged, teams are made, and leaders are born in the afternoon.

It happens to be Monday, so dinner will be at your advisor’s house. Just a handful of classmates, your advisor, and her family. This is your home-away-from-home. Your second family. When you want to celebrate or need advice, you can always come here. Oh, and it’s pizza night. Yum!

After all that food and conversation, it’s time to prepare for tomorrow’s classes. Hang in your dorm, head over to the library, or visit one of our peer tutoring centers.

When study hall is over, the smell of something chocolaty wafts up the hallway, so you wander down to the common room where your dorm parent is waiting — with cupcakes! This is where your day will end, laughing and talking with your dormmates, eating cupcakes on the couch. And many years from now, when all the other memories grow a little bit fuzzy, this may be the moment that holds its focus a little longer than the rest — just you and your friends, being together.

You’re lying in bed. The dorm is quiet. And through an open window you can see more stars than you thought possible. And now you’re thinking about that bridge buckling and how everyone teared up a little bit at chapel this morning and how good those cupcakes tasted. And then, in the blink of an eye, your lids grow heavy and the day is done.