(from left to right, top row to bottom) Guadalupe V, Nikhil S, Andrew L, Jesse C, Kariss L - Interviews Conducted by Anna C, Phoebe S, Celia LD, and Nora W
This week, your Humans of CPS Team interviewed five lovely seniors— Guadalupe, Nikhil, Andrew, Jesse, and Kariss — for our fifthteenth and final week of Seniors of CPS interviews. Some were interviewed in living rooms, others in bedrooms, or at school! These interviews include responses to various questions designed to help you get to know our seniors a bit better and to give you some insight into their memories from the past four years at College Prep. We hope you enjoy, and to the seniors— we’ll miss you all!
Q: What is something unique about you/a fun fact that your classmates might not know?
Guadalupe: I’m super obsessed with Frida Kahlo— I think I’m one of her number one fans. I love everything about her— her style, her artwork, her story, and I think she is one of the most influential women in my life (beyond my own mother, of course). I really look up to her, because she’s really bold in everything that she does. So yeah, pretty obsessed with Frida Kahlo.
Nikhil: I don’t know— I’m an open book, but... I’m really into film, I’m kind of a movie buff. I’m really into old school Kurosawa films!
Andrew: I’m very into Disney Pixar movies, the scoring especially. It’s always been one of my favorite things. Micheal Giacchino has done a ton of movies, but the one that I like most is UP; it’s my favorite movie of all time. He did the theme song that everybody cries over, and I just really like him and Disney movies in general.
Jesse: I like to take walks at night. I do it a lot… I love it. You would think in the day you’d be able to see more, but really it's the night when you can see all the details. So, yeah. I walk all around, mostly between 11:00pm and 2:00am, like witching hour. Nothing’s moving; I swear it's the best.
Kariss: The first thing that came to my mind is that my favorite color is pink. I’m pretty sure a decent amount of people know that, but, especially when I came in as a freshman, I think a lot of people just associated me with the color pink.
Q: What is one word you would use to describe your four years at College Prep?
Guadalupe: I don’t know if this makes sense grammatically, but I would say.. evolving. I don’t think I am in any way the same person I was freshman year. There are still aspects of my personality that I still carry with me today, but College Prep has pushed me to be more ambitious, and to pursue more than what I think I may be capable of. And even at times, especially with the pandemic, it got kind of hard for our grade, we were super positive and we knew that at the end of the day, we were going to get through it. And that’s exactly what we’re doing! So I hope we all get to graduate altogether.
Nikhil: Quick! Feels like it went by super fast. I still kind of feel like a freshman.
Andrew: It’s difficult to summarize the whole experience. I think the word I would use is tiring. That’s not to say that I just felt exhausted or like the whole thing was negative, but I think doing four years of this was definitely a lot of work, and I feel older.
Jesse: Excellent. I had a great time with a lot of great people, and I learned a lot.
Kariss: Amazing. Honestly, it’s kind of a basic word, but it’s definitely true. It’s been amazing in a lot of different ways… and hard, but still amazing while it was hard.
Q: How would you describe your four years at College Prep and the people that you spent those four years with?
Guadalupe: I think if I’m being honest, my high school experience at College Prep has many ups and many downs, so it hasn’t been a perfect, impeccable experience. I’ve definitely had moments where I’ve felt that sort of imposter syndrome, because everyone is just so good. And I remember one time Dean Chabon told us, “Back in your school, you may have been a golden fish, but here everyone is a golden fish,” or something like that. But I think ultimately, that really pushed me— to not see my peers as competition, but as resources, and so I think my four years have fortunately been super fun. Challenging, but ultimately really rewarding.
Nikhil: I guess I’d say my experience was… a lot of stress, a lot of failing and trying again, and a lot of support from everyone around me.
Andrew: I think our grade gets accused of being very unspirited and lazy a lot— I guess my last answer didn’t really help with that— but I think that underlying that is a very chill atmosphere. I think the people in our grade are just very laid back, in a good way. I appreciate that there’s not a lot of drama or crazy stuff happening. Everyone’s pretty cool with each other, which I like. I keep hearing these horror stories from people from other schools, and they’re telling me about the crazy stuff that goes down in their classes, and at least to my knowledge that sort of thing just hasn’t happened to my class, which is nice.
Jesse: I think communities shape who we are, and I think the subcommunity of my grade was a good community to shape me specifically as a person. I like it when the influences on me are firing every which way, and I definitely got that experience over my time here.
Kariss: One thing that has been with me throughout my time at College Prep has been being in the dance program. It has been super fun, especially back when we could have dance shows in person, just bonding over rehearsals and learning choreography. Another group of people that I spent a lot of time with was the yearbook editors. Shoutout to you guys! Just putting the book together every year and staying up late together and meeting over the summer was really fun. I think a lot about different things like that—like extracurriculars— but also about the classes: everyone here is so brilliant that no matter who you’re in a class with, regardless of whether you were close friends before, I think you’re really to be able to learn from everyone for sure. I know I do, going into every class like, “Wow, all of these people have a different perspective from me, but they’re all so smart, and I can definitely learn a lot from them.” I think that’s definitely been a defining feature of my time at CPS in classes, in extra curricular, and in basically anything else.