“Ever since I was 8 years old, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, so I’ve always looked at the future, figuring what I want to do, when I want to do it. I’m just a very structured person; I want to see things happen when they’re supposed to happen. I love to speak, personally, and I know being an entrepreneur, you have to have good public speaking skills and all that. I’m from a small private school, and I had the option to go to another private school, but one of the reasons I chose Westwood over that school was for the IB program. I know that it’s a lot of reading and writing and those are my strengths so I hope I can pursue those strengths in a different way. I’m in Algebra I, which I know makes it seem like you’re the dumb kid and whatever. Math’s not my strongest point, so I have spend time on that as well. People haven’t said it to me personally, but I feel like in my head that sometimes people think that, and it concerns me. They’re like two different things, you know. Some people are better at math and science others at reading, writing, English, foreign language, so it’s just [being] a better reader and writer and not necessarily math.”

Sarah Christman ’20’s backpack during the first six weeks.

I think my passions have stayed the same but I’ve definitely grown and learned a lot especially about Westwood, academics in general but I’ve enjoyed the year I’ve really had. I would say also more mature, and also academically I think I’m smarter just because I’ve learned from a lot of people, a lot of students, a lot of teachers and they’ve really helped me grow. Honestly, yeah I really do [think I met my goals]. My grades have been pretty good this year, there’s been some points where I shouldn’t have procrastinated as long, but I learned from that and that’s okay. Even though the friend-making process has been slower than I’ve imagined I still have made friends. I’m enjoying IB but I plan to drop out after my sophomore year just because it’s not what I want to do, but I’m glad that I have the opportunity to go to WAS and next year APUSH and just learn from that but I plan to drop. I’ve always had that goal [of being an entrepreneur] since I was 8 or 10, I kind of had it set for a while, but through the principles of business, marketing, finance I’ve learned a lot more than I’ve thought in that class honestly, so I think it’s clarified that point even more that that’s what I want to do.

Sarah Christman ’20’s backpack during the last six weeks.