If there was ever a school that deviated from high school teen dramas the most, it would be UNIS. UNIS does not seem to conform very well with the dramatic high school life that movies and TV shows usually portray; instead, it has its own social norms and standards that its students follow.

Upon entering high school after watching the heaps of high school teen films, one would truly expect to find a nightmare of cliques viciously attacking each other in every spare moment.

However, the incredibly diverse mix of people in UNIS seems to be relatively peaceful, which apparently surprises many visiting parents and potential students. This is not something most UNIS students take conscious note of, as everyone integrates into the school naturally without boundaries set by race, gender, or sexuality.

The diversity of students also means a great number of those who can speak more than one language, and it has become more common in the UNIS community to have fluent bilingual students than to have only English-speaking students who flounder while learning their second language.

On the other hand, there are involuntary divisions that make themselves clear through the years; there is a noticeable trend of this year’s junior and senior students preferring to group together in the library while sophomores and freshmen prefer the TH student lounge and sometimes, the rooftop area. It does not suggest that there is any animosity between the grades, but perhaps suggests a difference in priorities between the two groups of students.

Another more specific aspect of most UNIS students is the common sense of humor; Twitter slang, relatable jokes, or memes tend to be a center of conversations (other than the consistent underlying flow of misery due to the IB). UNIS students also have the tendency to create inside jokes on the school itself, whether it be around teachers and their odd expressions and sayings, or common student behavior (i.e. vaping in the school bathrooms).

While many of the spoofs tend to be of harmless subjects, the issue of vaping has actually come up in the school administration’s eyes as the epidemic of Juul reaches the hands of teenagers. Vaping, while not necessarily a joke, is viewed in the eyes of students as a less serious topic; the graduates of 2018 took the chance during senior prank day to make the topic more light-hearted, pasting posters saying “no peeing in the vape room” over the school bathrooms.

Throughout the years, UNIS students have built their own culture in the school fundamentally different from the happenings and ideas of others, and it is ultimately its uniqueness of the diverse, multinational, and good nature of its students that make the school one of a kind.