Academics

I went to Regents School of Austin for 13 years, starting kindergarten in 2005, and finishing high school in 2018. Regents is a rigorous classical Christian school in Austin, TX that focuses on preparing its students for college in the best possible way, through classical training and difficult academics. In high school, all of my literature and history classes were already considered honors classes, due to the rigorous coursework provided by the school. As a part of the classical training, all students must take Latin beginning in fourth grade and finishing in eighth. Then, in high school, students can choose to continue Latin, or take Spanish or French. I choose to take Latin in high school and, because I was already in the advanced Latin track, I was able to complete Latin VI my junior year. Each of my high school years I took the advanced math and science courses, which were all one year above my grade level, finishing high school with Molecular Biology and Calculus (two common college freshman courses) already under my belt. In addition, I was invited to play guitar in the Jazz Band and did so Sophomore through Senior year. I also took a fifth core class that is required by the school each year of high school as a part of the classical education. Freshman year I took Bible, Sophomore year I took Rhetoric I, Junior year I took Apologetics and Senior year I took Rhetoric II (which combined common rhetoric course material with thesis preparation).

Finally, to cap off my journey at Regents School of Austin, I performed a thesis; a 20-minute persuasive speech, extensively researched, rigorously structured and proficiently delivered, followed by a 20-minute Q&A period. During this time, four judges (two from the community-often experts in the field, or at least knowledgeable in it- one faculty member and your thesis advisor-who is also faculty) observe for the first half. Following the completion of your rehearsed portion, the four judges ask any question they’d like. The student then has to use the knowledge that they have gained from a year’s worth of research to best answer a question that they could do very little to prepare for.

Each student is able to choose a topic that interests them and that is acceptable to the thesis committee at the school. It can be about anything as long as it is approved. In order to be approved it must be relevant to the current time period (so a thesis on women voting in America would most likely not be approved), it must be arguable from at least two points of view, it cannot defame the school or its principles and it cannot be inappropriate. After two months of contemplation I landed on Alzheimer’s disease. I was not sure what I wanted to say about it, but I knew it was the area I wanted to research. So I began researching everything I could about it. What it was, what caused it, why it still hadn’t been cured, how common it was, who has it etc. After another two weeks of research, I found that stem cells were being used in a new trial procedure that may be able to cure, or at least slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. I knew I could argue about the ethics of stem cell research, the delicacy of the topic didn’t steer me away in the end; it actually was because someone else was already doing stem cells as their topic. However, I am very grateful I landed on the topic that I did, because it worked out so much better than I could have imagined.

Towards the start of spring semester, it all came together and by March I had a solid thesis that just needed to be grammatically edited and then memorized. My final topic was “A Fast Start to a Slow Race: Why Doctors Should Encourage their Alzheimer’s Patients to Sign All of the Necessary Legal Documents Within the First Six Months of Diagnosis.” In short, I argued that the unpredictability, among other things, made waiting to get all of your legal affairs in order until later in life was simply not worth the risk. The risk being becoming legally mentally incompetent before finishing the required legal affairs and in turn not being able to control how the end of your life plays out, where your estate goes, who controls your assets etc. Although this became more of a legal topic, I liked how it was rooted in medicine and involve researching about medical practices related to it in order to answer the Q&A well as well as getting a better understanding of this topic just for my own benefit. After completing my senior thesis, and now having been done for several months, I am still very happy with the topic I choose and wouldn’t change it now, even if I could.

Now, having graduated from High School, I am able to focus the perspective of my studies from very broad to a more specific area of study; one with an end goal, a career, in mind. As of right now, for me that is Pre-Med, however that could change over this gap year to Business Marketing, Architecture, Journalism, or any other plethora of majors that I may not even be aware of. I have also narrowed the scope of my college search to three potential schools: Westmont College (Santa Barbara, CA) Biola University (La Mirada, CA) and Gordon College (Wenham, MA). Each college has many similarities that drew me to them, as well as many different offers and entities that make them unique, leading to a more difficult decision.  I do not yet know exactly what the future holds for me academically, but I am excited to find out over the next few years.

 

To see a full list of the courses I took over my high school career see my blog post titled “My High School Courses.”