I plan to major in Fiber Science & Apparel Design at Cornell. It lets me fuse fashion, which has been my love outside of school, with science, which has always been my favorite subject. I was talking with Mrs. Brown [a Thayer history teacher] about how I liked social studies, science and technology and she said, “Why choose?” and that really resonated. "Why choose?" has been my motto this past year. I feel like there’s a way to harness my interests through interdisciplinary work.

Definitely AP Calculus with Mr. Cedrone. He’s very good about making sure you have the tools to succeed and your foundation is solid, but he pushes you to apply those tools in real world situations or extrapolate from that knowledge. Mr. Cedrone was also my most challenging teacher, and my favorite during my time here.

On the last day of class our entire class came together to take a photo on the teardrop [the front lawn] and it was a really nice moment. It felt like we were one giant group of friends.

My final paper for AP US History on the history and socio-economic parallels between the evolution of denim trends and US socio-economic trends. I titled it Anthropolojeans. I approached it scientifically, but it was interesting to see that translate into a humanities paper. It really proved how much my writing skills had changed over the course of that year.

Try everything. Don’t ever limit yourself—you have control over what you can do. This year I asked for and was able to complete two independent studies [Intro to Entrepreneurship and Technologically Integrated Fashion]. I wanted to expand my academic journey, and they really helped shape which major I will choose. What I love about Thayer is that if you have a passion the faculty will help you make it happen. If you have the will to do something they will be there every step of the way.

The pumpkin drop. It’s the perfect example of how Thayer can mix fun and learning, and it makes me smile. [Note: The pumpkin drop is a fall tradition at Thayer in which students test Galileo's 1589 hypothesis that two objects, one light and one heavy, when dropped from the top of a tower will fall at the same rate. Students drop multiple pumpkins from the top of Thayer’s iconic tower while their classmates measure and observe.]