“I was born and raised in Ukraine. Full-blood Ukrainian” Roman Kindrat, a freshman at DePaul College Prep, explained.

DePaul Prep’s five Core Vales are Faith, Respect, Excellence, Service, and Health. While all five are of equal importance, the second, Respect, is one of the most talked about. This value describes DePaul Prep’s goal to cultivate a caring school space where there is appreciation for every single member of the community and an appreciation for each student’s diverse experiences.

A little known group of students who make DePaul Prep’s community diverse are those who have lived outside of the United States.

Kindrat is just one example.

“I was born in the big city of Lviv, but we moved to a smaller town of Khrushchev” he revealed. “And I spent my school years there, up until fourth grade when we moved here”.  

Currently, he lives in Ukrainian village, a Chicago neighborhood about a 15 minute drive from DePaul Prep, known for its large population of Ukrainians. At school, he speaks English, but at home, he speaks Ukrainian with his family. 

“I’m actually trilingual. My primary language is Ukrainian. I speak it at home, with my friends. It is a language I think in” he said. “English is my secondary language. Since I came here to the United States, I learned from the people around me.”

At first, the language learning process presented some challenges. However, as time went on, it became easier.

“It was difficult at first, not knowing the language, but then hearing how people speak, learning how to develop my communication skills, I picked it up quickly, and then I managed to communicate better.”

Freshman Max Mackenzie also has experiences in another country 8,941 miles Southeast of the U.S. — South Africa. 

“I lived in Johannesburg,” he stated. 

He lived there until he was 12, which is when he moved to Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Similar to Kindrat, there were also some bumps along the way. 

“The culture was just vastly different” said Mackenzie. “Just the stuff we would talk about would be different”. 

In addition, he noticed differences in traditional attitudes and accents. 

These aspects made it difficult for Mackenzie to fit in at first, but eventually he was able to find his “own people,” such as fellow classmates at his grade school and DePaul College Prep.

In contrast to Kindrat and Mackenzie, freshman Kiara Novakovic grew up in the United States but lived in a different place for approximately three years. In 2015, she and her family moved to the United Kingdon because of her father’s job, and to be closer to Croatia, where her father’s family resides. She lived in London for two full grades, where she attended an international school. 

The hardest part for her was adjusting during the move back to the U.S., where the time zone changed drastically by five hours. She also took note of major cultural differences, which included normal times for eating dinner, the typical length of summer break for students, and where citizens traditionally took trips to.

However, despite their different backgrounds, all three students agree that their experiences gave them at least one thing that changed them for the better.

“I think that once you experience a different country, and you live in a different area, you get a better grasp on the world, and it isn’t so singled-out,” explained Novakovic. 

Mackenzie agreed, explaining that he feels he looks at topics “through a different lens” compared to others.

For Kindrat personally, one of the characteristics he values about diversity is the ability to spread his own culture and immerse himself in others’.

“I really like learning about other cultures,” he said. 

For all of these reasons, Kindrat, Mackenzie, and Novakovic hope that DePaul College Prep continues to become an even larger community of unique students as the school continues to grow. 

“I think we can definitely grow” Novakovic admitted.  “And I think we are with the freshmen class.” In addition, Novakovic hopes current students at DePaul Prep better educate themselves about cultures present at the school.

In fact, he DePaul Prep community will be able to learn more about another culture soon. The school will be hosting 22 foreign exchange students from April 29th to May 5th. Conducted by Ms. Meindl, a French teacher at DePaul Prep, this program will allow French students from the Catholic high school, Institution Stanislas, to immerse themselves in American culture.

As Kindrat phrased, “It will only be beneficial for [the community] to grow even more”.