This week, your Humans of CPS Team interviewed three lovely seniors— Sam, Sophia, and Dimitrios, for our second week of Seniors of CPS interviews. These interviews include responses to a couple of newly added questions, for the purpose of getting to know our seniors a bit better and to hear about memories from their past four years at College Prep. We hope you enjoy!
Q: What is something unique about you or a fun fact that your classmates might not know?
Sam: Can it be two really quick ones? Okay, so one— I started biking a few weeks ago, and I’m not an athletic person, so maybe that’ll surprise some people. But it’s really cool, and I get to bike to different places. I live in Oakland, like a little bit south of CPS, and one time I biked all the way to the hills of North Berkeley to drop a book off at someone’s house, so I was pretty proud of myself. I’d really recommend it to anybody, because it’s totally like a free serotonin boost: I’ll do it, and then for the next 8 hours I’ll just be super happy, like even listening to sad music, and being like, “This is great!” and being happy. The other thing would be— maybe everybody actually knows this— my hair is not the best these days, but I don’t actually do anything to my hair, it’s just really thick and stands up. It has a mind of its own— I’ll wake up and it’ll just be everywhere.
Sophia: I feel like I’m a pretty open book, but I guess… I don’t want anything more than to just be a plant mom, but I kill everything I touch. I have two cacti, and they stay alive pretty easily. I’m hoping I do well with them for a couple of months and can move on to something a little more challenging. I named my two cacti after my two favorite characters in Lord of the Rings, Merry and Pippin. I love them a lot, and hopefully I will have a growing collection of plants soon.
Dimitrios: I’m bilingual. I can speak both English and Greek.
Q: What is one word you would use to describe your four years at College Prep?
Sam: Everything. A bit poetic, but that’s my word.
Sophia: I guess I’d say very nurturing. I’ve had a very nurturing three and a half years full of really good memories.
Dimitrios: Quick or nonstop.
Q: How would you describe your four years at College Prep and the people that you spent those four years with?
Sam: I guess I say everything because I’ve gotten to do a lot of different things and meet a lot of different people. I think the people that I’ve been friends with have shifted, and added, and subtracted from freshmen year to now, so many times, and I think it’s been really cool to get to know a lot of different people. I really appreciate that at CPS the classes are really small. Every semester, when I have a new class, I’ll make a new friend or meet somebody I haven’t really talked to before. I think overall it’s just been good. I think that everyone here is such a nice person, and maybe that’s something I’ve come to learn— I mean, I’m sure there are people that I’ve passed judgements on in my head, but I don’t think there’s a single person in my grade who isn’t an incredibly nice person. And I’ve gotten to know a lot of them a lot more than I thought I would, and there’s still a lot of them that I don’t really know, but it’s kinda cool how, for any given person, I know somebody who knows them. I feel like I’m not that far off from knowing everybody.
Sophia: I feel like— educational is just a boring word to say— but I feel like CPS has taught me so much, not only academically. I’ve learned a lot about self expression and self worth just by talking to the people around me and by really interacting with faculty and my friends. Everyone at College Prep is so caring, and it is such a great environment for coming out of your shell; a lot of my friends and I have really come out of our shells at CPS. Everyone around me has just been so great.
Dimitrios: It’s interesting getting to know new people. It was fun having classes at CPS. I really liked a lot of the teachers, especially Coakley and Minh. They made chemistry and math pretty fun because I can tell that they like the subject.