Greetings from Senior Year!


Greetings from senior year!

It’s hard to believe how fast my high school years have flown by, it seems I can not even remember life as a freshman! So many great activities have filled my high school years, from participating in sports to debate, to the many extracurricular opportunities I have had along the way. I plan to finish my last high school year with the same amount of determination and grit as I started with, and enjoy every last minute of it!

A few weekends ago, I was able to attend the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation’s Senators Summit- a weekend in Washington DC with other top applicants of the Coolidge Scholarship. We spent four fast-paced days meeting influential policymakers, visiting some of our nation’s greatest historical sites, and participating in debates with each other. I had an amazing experience immersing myself in our nation’s capital. Though I had been there previously on an eighth-grade class trip, this time I was armed with a more intimate knowledge of both the foundations and the present-day workings of our government system. I had also just finished my summer Economic Policy course and thesis paper, which examined trade relations between the US and Mexico and their economic ramifications. The subject was intriguing to me and was made even more interesting by the current political climate and escalating trade war. All in all- despite the oppressive DC heat- the Senator’s summit thoroughly reinvigorated my desire to be a change-maker for our nation, and as I walked through the streets of DC, I could imagine myself back in a few short years (as I suspect college flies by just as quickly as high school), starting my career as a policy analyst for one of the many NGO’s or government-affiliated offices, or perhaps even as President!


One of the projects that I am most looking forward to this year is my Strnad Fellowship. The Strnad Fellowship program was created to offer seniors at my school the opportunity to explore a creative area of interest in a year-long project, culminating in a presentation to my school community. I am particularly excited to combine my passion for history and my artistic talent to explore the historical role that propaganda played in art and to create my own prints. I love printmaking as a medium of expression because of its versatility and complexity. It is no straightforward task to create prints from wood, metal, and synthetic materials, and I love challenging myself to adopt new mediums and formats. I became especially interested in the interplay between art and history in my American History class, when we discussed artwork in their historical and political context, uncovering subtle messages and opinions expressed in the piece. I hope to explore these same aspects of art through my Strnad Fellowship, and I will be sure to share my final products here!

Happy senior year!

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