Senior Spotlight: Brent

What is a memory or an experience that you've had here that you'll take with you after high school?

Probably my monologue last year! I wanted to do something comedic and I have always loved being funny, but in the last couple days leading up to the performance, I almost didn't do it, because I was getting those last-minute fears. I almost changed it and I asked some of my classmates whether I should actually perform this, and they said that they thought it was very funny. So I did it, and after 10 seconds, the fear just went away, I got into my zone — and I got exactly what I wanted. I got the whole audience just erupting with laughter.

I was just so nervous that the audience wasn't going to laugh that I even asked one of my English teachers to try to start a laugh just in case. Luckily I am happy to say the monologue was far more successful than I thought and I got wonderful compliments from teachers and students for the rest of the week.

It was such a gratifying feeling. I really got such a boost in my confidence because of that. And I think I'm going to be carrying that moment for a long time. I pushed through the anxieties I had and I succeeded, and it was wonderful.

What would you say your favorite block or morning lesson was during your time here?

I really loved ancient history and I loved Mr. McCarthy — he's great and I love history in general. Some of the subjects we learned about were not something that I would expect us to be talking about in high school.

We also took a field trip to the University of Chicago where we visited a museum and got to draw all of these artifacts. I just loved that block. We did so many readings of ancient texts including the Epic of Gilgamesh, and I just thought that was very interesting.

How would you say your time at CWHS has shaped you as a person, and what will you miss the most about going to school here?

I think going to school here has helped me unlock and use a creative side of myself. I went to a public school before and mostly it was worksheets and that sort of thing. But I never really tried doing an assignment in an artistic way. The way we do block books here — that's just not something that I had done before. I got to be a lot more creative, imaginative, and look at things in a different way.

What I'm going to miss quite a lot about this place is the close knit environment. Even though we're all students here in the student body, we're all so tightly knit that it feels more than that. It's a pseudo family of sorts, you know? And forming bonds with people I most likely would have never spoken to in a huge setting is so interesting. I've gotten to talk to people of very different perspectives and I've met totally new and different people who are very different from each other. I think that's absolutely wonderful and is something I'm going to miss when I go out into huge environments. 

Tell us a little bit about your senior project!

My senior project focuses how genetically modified organisms and synthetic organisms can be beneficial for the natural world. I've always been super interested in nature and I've also been very interested in building things and creating things. So, I thought it would be so interesting to take the two together and create something that can maybe benefit nature and ecology.

What's next for you after graduation? 

I want to eventually become a genetic engineer and work with DNA, but to be honest I’m not 100% certain what my future may look like. I would love to do biology and ecology-related work. I think that chapter of science so cool. I plan on traveling abroad and I look forward to studying in different parts of the world.