1. What does your life look like now?

I’m currently a senior at Washington and Lee University, majoring in Business Administration (finance) with unofficial concentrations in American History, Politics, and French language. I’m also applying for jobs in the investment management industry, as well helping out with a Christian ministry and writing for a political quarterly on campus, so I’m always busy, but in a good way.

2. What do you enjoy doing?

My main hobby at this point is playing golf, and I try to play 18 holes and hit range balls at least once a week each, twice if I can swing it. I also enjoy writing for the W&L Spectator, which is our conservative political journal, and I write primarily about the intersection between history and current events. While not normally a huge hiker, I have gotten into hiking civil war battlefields because it allows me to learn more about history while exercising, and I rarely turn down the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. I also joined a fraternity freshman year, which comes with both blessings and challenges. That said, you absolutely can join a Greek organization (at least at some colleges) and maintain your faith, and often living your faith publicly in a fraternity gives you opportunities to share Christ that you wouldn’t have had otherwise because you stand out so much from what most everyone else is doing. 

3. What was your most memorable moment at CHESS or the first word that comes to mind when you think of CHESS?

It was definitely the friendships I made. My group of friends all bonded over math classes together for four years in a row and had relatively well-matched study halls, so we always found ways to have a blast. One year we had access to a ping-pong table and that got so intense that our ping-pong privileges were revoked the next year, so we switched to card games and almost managed to make Uno, Capitalism, and Old Maid contact sports (there was no almost about Spoons). In class, my most persistent memories are of Mr. Jenkins keeping me on my toes, even as an upperclassman, because he could shift so seamlessly between constructive criticism, encouragement, and sarcasm, and I never knew what to expect at a given moment.

4. How did CHESS prepare you for life after school?

Most of my CHESS classes helped prepare me for college in some way, but three professors get special shoutouts. Mrs. Rivera not only taught math very comprehensibly but put up with all of our shenanigans (and with my passing out in afternoon classes after caffeinated beverages were outlawed in classrooms). Mrs. O’Donnell was 100% responsible for the success I’ve had in French classes here at W&L, especially in developing an authentic French accent. And despite other capable influences, Mr. Jenkins deserves the lion’s share of the credit for my progress as a writer. What really differentiates him from other professors I’ve had before and during college is that he teaches students how to organize their ideas as thoroughly as they organize their words. The ability to conceptualize literary themes in consideration of authors’ worldviews is essential for writing good term papers and articles, and it was the four years I spent in Mr. Jenkins’ literature classes in high school that taught me how do that most abstract aspect of writing well. 

5. How has your perspective changed since you graduated from High School?

The biggest shift between graduating high school and college is that your perspective just widens. When you graduate from high school, you’re still generally thinking in terms of the relatively insular life you’ve led at home with responsibilities of a limited scope. College changes everything: even from the start of your freshman year you have to be able to live and function on your own with a high academic workload. From there you have to learn how to function socially in an uncontrolled environment, which is an underrepresented challenge of college life. I think it’s especially so for most Christians, as party culture on the one hand and a largely godless academic establishment on the other rip the training wheels off your Christian walk very quickly. Some would say the four years between high school and college graduation signify the difference between childhood and adulthood, but I’m not sure I buy that because I still feel very much like a kid in some ways. I’m starting to suspect that there’s a kid in all of us that never completely “grows up”, and that our perception as kids that adults know what they’re doing is naïve. It’s a good thing God and his Word are there for us, because the more time I spend around “adults” the more I realize how immature any human is in themself no matter how old they are.