By Isabella Houle '19Caroline Morin ’17, a recent graduate of NCS, is on a gap year before she joins the William and Mary Class of ’22. Doing everything from immersing herself in the culture of Salamanca, Spain, to learning HVAC repair skills, Caroline is learning beyond the classroom. Currently in Ecuador, Caroline answered questions about her gap year experiences!
What made you want to take a gap year? There are easily hundreds of reasons why I decided to take a gap year. I guess the simplest answer is my daily routine at NCS revolved around school, homework, school activities, and worrying about how much I had to do. As my daily routine became more established, I forgot to prioritize mental health and basic life stuff. I graduated feeling that my all encompassing NCS education featured a large gap: practical life knowledge. Could you give us a brief overview of all that you’ve done on your gap year? Very brief but so far: I’ve studied Spanish in Salamanca, Spain; conducted research on Olive Ridley turtle nesting patterns in Ostional, Costa Rica; worked at a non-profit focused on childhood development and education in Quito, Ecuador; taken night classes on plumbing and appliance repair at my local public school; worked in an HVAC warehouse; volunteered for Habitat for Humanity; and worked as a wood-turner. Did you think of what you wanted to do on a gap year and then decide you wanted to take one, or did you decide you wanted to take a gap year and then figured out what you wanted to do? I started thinking about taking a gap year sophomore year, so the gap idea came first. I floated ideas around for a few years before committing to actual plans second semester senior year. Did NCS prepare you for anything you’ve encountered on your gap year? I learned early on in my gap that if you ever feel in your comfort zone, there’s something wrong because you’re not challenging yourself or are taking your situation for granted. With that said, NCS provided me with the basic building blocks for all my experiences; whether that be navigating Quito’s bus system or re-constructing a washing machine. What is the coolest thing you’ve done so far? Ooo — probably riding a camel after watching sunrise in Morocco or seeing a turtle give birth in Costa Rica. What’s the most different thing about anywhere you’ve been and DC? This is not a tangible “thing” per say, but a fair amount of the people I’ve met embody the “go with the flow” philosophy to such an extent that they don’t know what country they’ll be in in a week. Whereas, at home I feel like it’s normal to subconsciously have a detailed plan for the rest of your life. Do you miss NCS/high school? Yes and no. I miss seeing my teachers and friends everyday and having the assurance of a supportive community. But I don’t miss the stress and lack-of-sleep culture. Any advice for current NCS students? Do you have any advocacy for taking a gap year for Close students Taking a gap year has been the hands-down best decision I have ever taken in my life, and I cannot recommend it enough. My gap has cemented the lessons I learned at NCS and has grown my worldview tenfold. If anyone is thinking about taking a gap, feel free to reach out!
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By Ellie Bailey '19 Ms. Maeve Reston is a Los Angeles-based national political reporter for CNN. She is best known for approaching reporting through multimedia platforms such as video and social media, her coverage of the 2016 election, and her thoughts on the fashion of politics.
After graduating from NCS in 1995, she attended Cornell University, where she studied English. She then went on to earn her master’s degree from Dartmouth College, where she studied World War II history. Before her time at CNN, she wrote for the Austin American Statesman, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Los Angeles Times. Across her tenure at multiple news organizations, she has covered four presidential elections. During the 2012 and 2016 elections, she started examining the role fashion choices of candidates and supporters plays in campaigning via an Instagram hashtag #campaignfashionreport. She has stated that “so much of political campaigns are just political theater, and the amount of thought from operatives that goes into selecting a debate tie– is it red or blue? Is there a pattern on there? Are you trying to appeal to independents? ... It’s been a fun way to think about politics too because the candidates spend so much time on what kind of image they want to project.” Since Ms. Reston is a political journalist living in Los Angeles, she has a unique perspective on politics. She once said that being a political reporter away from D.C. has been “incredibly refreshing. If I had my way, political reporters wouldn’t have desks – just a laptop, an aircard, and the freedom to roam the country finding the best stories.” She added in a different interview that “one of the most important things about covering a campaign is getting outside the bubble.” At CNN she is now working on an online video series that describes politics in the western United States. Some of the videos include “Here’s Why Nevada was Trump Country” and “How Trump’s Deportation Plan Failed 62 Years Ago.” Despite her substantial contributions to political reporting, as a woman, she has sometimes struggled to be taken seriously in the journalism world. In 2012 she, along with an array of other female journalists, was criticized for having a “provocative” profile photograph on Twitter, despite wearing a dress that the Guardian declared was “so classy she could be on her way to a White House dinner.” She has also written about the challenges of being both a good mother and an ambitious journalist. Even after all her success, Ms. Reston still enjoys visiting the Cathedral with her young daughter when they are in D.C. together. By Sandra Mauro '19 “I was a nerdy kid. I loved books and reading and was chock full of facts — if you punctured a hole in me I’d start spewing information about William of Orange.” This is how Alexandra Petri ‘06 describes herself as an NCS student, where she enjoyed reading and writing plays and showed her sense of humor. In high school, she entered an Arena Stage playwriting competition and three of her plays were chosen to be performed there. Her first play was about two unicorns waiting for the already departed Noah’s Ark.
After graduating from NCS, Petri attended Harvard. She initially planned on on majoring in math. However, she quickly found she “didn’t understand what was going on,” and followed her passion for writing, switching her major to English. Her love for comedy and journalism further developed through the extracurriculars she participated in. She joined the Harvard Stand-Up Comedy Society and the Harvard Time, a student TV show. During her time at Harvard, she also wrote a comedy column for the college newspaper, The Crimson. The summer before her senior year, she interned for the Washington Post, writing about technology because “as a Millennial, [she] had a stake in making a coherent position in that area.” After graduation Petri interned for the Washington Post again, and after being offered a job there, she became their youngest columnist, at age 20. Her Washington Post column, The ComPost, “offers a lighter take on the news and political insanity of the day” through her skillful use of both satire and cringe-worthy puns. In addition, she also runs two successful Twitter accounts. The first is an award-winning parody account called “Emo Kylo Ren,” which includes tweets such as “dear diary, I think Chewbacca could always pilot That Ship by himself and he was just letting my dad do it because he felt bad.” The second is her personal Twitter account (@petridishes), and it has over 100,000 followers. Recently, she has been tweeting about the Olympics and writing creative puns like: “skating to anna karenina? I bet she really had to TRAIN.” In 2015, she published her first book called A Field Guide to Awkward Silences, a collection of comical essays about her life. This year she was recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, joining four other NCS alumnae who have also made the list in the past. But through all this, she hasn’t given up her love of theater and still writes plays in a playwrights collective called The Welders. |
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