I really enjoyed all of them, but I would have to say Mrs. Hayman's AP English Language and Composition class was one of my favorites. We looked at literature in a different way. Not only at what's good about this piece and what did the author do well, but how is the writer getting inside your head? What is the author doing to construct his or her arguments? And it was a classroom of people who were really, really invested in what they were doing and really enjoyed the course, and it just all came together for a very fun atmosphere.

I’m going to Bowdoin. I think I’ll study English but that could definitely change. I want to do a lot of things.

Honestly, I would say every experience I've had here has shaped that in some way. I mean, my English and Spanish and history classes have been wonderful, and I've been able to write about parts of the world that I never knew anything about. Even just the little things, like, I can now say I've read this book by this author, and I can now say I can speak another language, with a reasonable degree of fluency. All the small things add up to prepare me for the next step. Thayer’s also definitely given me the confidence to try a lot of things, and not put myself in a box.

AP Java, which I took last year. Programming really forces you to think in a different way and put the time in. One skill that it taught me is, and this has turned out to be useful for essays and things too, but you really can't just jump in. You have to outline beforehand. You have to know where you're going; you have to have a plan. And my tendency, especially my first year, was to just start. The class forced me to rethink some things, but it worked out very well in the end. I enjoyed it a lot.

In AP U.S. History last year we had a debate about whether the progressive reforms of the early 1900s were Jeffersonian or Hamiltonian, and my group drew the stance that was assumed to be hardest to defend. And we put a lot of work in on it, and it was lot of fun. It was cool being up there, and when someone asked me a question that I didn’t prepare specifically for I had to take my knowledge and apply it quickly. It's very different skill set, but a very fun one, and it inspired me to be interested in debate, and public speaking opportunities. We ended up winning the debate, and I realized I really enjoy the challenge of thinking on my feet.

It would probably be Trivia team. I mean, it's such a fun and unique thing to be able to tell people twenty years from now, "I was on TV when I was in high school!" It was a great group of people, who were like-minded and just had fun with it. [The Thayer Trivia Team appeared on the WGBH Quiz Show this year, making it to the second round.]