Five Seniors

INTERVIEWS BY Becky Purdy | ILLUSTRATIONS BY Katelyn Martinez

To sum up the Loomis Chaffee Class of 2020 is to tell 184 stories at once. The resulting tale would carry the listener around the world before zeroing in on our Island campus in Windsor, Connecticut, for four years, where the stories would intersect, overlap, merge, and ultimately diverge, with each of its 184 central characters changed by the experience in ways big and small. The personal stories shared by seniors Halim Ali, Margarita Demkina, Makayla McPherson, Ryan Armstrong, and Grace Wolf represent five unique threads of the larger narrative — a tale that is really just beginning.

Editor’s Note: We wanted you to see as well as hear from these fascinating members of the Class of 2020, but with the campus closed this spring because of the pandemic, we could not photograph these seniors in their familiar campus environs. Thus, we enlisted illustrator Katelyn Martinez to create their portraits here and on the pages that follow.

Grace Wolf

Q. Where’s home for you?

A. I’m from Appleton, Wisconsin. I’ve basically lived here my whole life. Both of my parents are from here, and they went to high school together. My entire family lives here. My dad has three brothers, and my mom has a race will be the first person in her family to attend college when she enters the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar in the fall. The Morehead is among the most selective merit scholarship opportunities in the United States, with just 3 percent of applicants gaining adsister, but then all of their cousins, everyone lives within half an hour of me. My mom has 18 cousins. I work with two of my second cousins. I went to mission to the program based on leadership, character, scholarship, and school with four of my cousins. physical vigor. Inducted into the Loomis Chaffee Cum Laude Society for academic excellence, Grace also received the Social Science Prize and the Morris H. Brown Senior Theater & Dance Prize this spring and a Founders Prize and a Junior Theater & Dance Award last year. Among her many roles, she served as a prefect as a junior, resident assistant as a senior, Writing Studio staff member, Pelican Service Organization leader, tour guide, Water Warriors swim instructor, Empty Bowls Project contributor, and a key member of the theater tech crew for many shows in the Norris Ely Orchard Theater during her four years on the Island.

Q. Was it hard to leave Appleton to come to Loomis?

A. Growing up through the public schools I was in, I was always — I don’t want to use the word “nerdy,” but I don’t know how else to describe it — I loved school, everything about school. My parents were looking for other things I could do, extra, because they knew I was bored. This is in third or fourth grade. We found these camps through University of Wisconsin. I did chemistry, algebra, always science and math camps. And I met a girl there the summer after seventh grade who is a legacy at Exeter. She was a year older than me. She was talking about how she was going to go, and she was so excited, and there was so much that she could do. I brought it up in passing with my parents in October of eighth grade, and they kind of dismissed it. My mom works at a grocery store, my dad’s a firefighter. They were like, “Not going to happen. You’re not going to go to a fancy boarding school that costs more than most people’s college.” And then I kept getting letters from all these [independent schools] in the Midwest because of some extra testing I had done. I remember presenting this little Powerpoint presentation to my parents about why I should be able to apply to boarding school, and I just wouldn’t let it go. I think it was more of a joke then: “Well, at least if I don’t get in, it’s like practice for applying to college, writing Photo: Jessica Ravenelle essays, taking SSATs.” They ended up letting me apply to four schools. I decided to apply in December, and the applications were due in January. We had to drive three hours away to find an SSAT because there aren’t any around here. Then we drove out to the East Coast and toured a few schools, and Loomis was one of them. I kind of threw together my applications, did not study for the SSAT, just did everything I could super fast, not expecting much of it, and then March 10 rolled around. I got into Loomis and got the LC Scholar offer, and I was like, “What in the world?” So I ended up going.

To find out more about the LC Scholars Program, visit www.loomischaffee.org/ magazine.

Q. Did it take much convincing for your parents after that?

A. Once I got my financial aid, they said, “Well, I guess you can do this if you want. It would work.” My dad was all on board for it. My mom was not really feeling it, but she couldn’t really say no after we had done all the work and it worked out so well. And I think she’s really happy about it now. My little sister [ Jessica] is now a sophomore at Loomis, so it worked out. I have another little sister who’s in eighth grade, and she was going to apply to Loomis, but she decided not to. She’s not really interested in being that far from home. My mom’s excited. She gets to keep one. That’s what we always say. (laughing)

Q. What was the transition like from your previous school experience to Loomis?

A. It was a huge change. I can definitely say it was humbling because I was so used to never doing any work. I never had homework, except for my math class because I went to the high school for math. Coming to Loomis was such a shock. I failed my first chemistry quiz because I didn’t think I had to study. I got a little obsessive because I wanted to keep the same grades like I had in middle school, and I did somehow eventually figure it out. Fall term freshman year, I’ve never been able to get that good of grades again once I had that shock of failing something. But it was definitely a lot of work. I’d say the biggest jump was starting a new language. We didn’t start language until seventh or eighth grade at my old school, and we only learned vocabulary. And English was hard because I had never learned grammar before. I literally couldn’t have told you what a verb was compared to an adjective, so that was different. Math was the only thing that wasn’t really hard my freshman year.

Q. Would you say you’re a math-science kid or humanities or both?

A. I’d say it’s mixed. I really like doing things like working in the Writing Studio [at Loomis], and I do really like English. I think this year my favorite class has been economics, actually. But I also did the Guided Research Project in Molecular Biology and really liked that. Career-wise, I’m planning on going into the sciences. My plan for school is to major in public health but for nutrition, so it’s a pre-med public health track, so you get this double whammy about how nutrition can impact people before you go on to med school.

Q. What about economics made it your favorite class this year?

A. I think it’s because [it is] applicable and kind of mathy. I’m in Multi [Multivariable Calculus] this year for math, and it’s so theoretical that it makes it, for me, a lot less enjoyable. I’m looking at these 3D graphs, but they’re not meaning anything to me, whereas econ is maybe a little bit simpler math, but I Island News actually understand what’s going on in the world, especially with all the coronavirus stuff and the markets crashing. It’s been fascinating. And they run financial literacy seminars. It’s really nice how relatable it is and overall applicable to life. Last year I set up two fundraisers at school [as a member of the Pelican Service Organization]. But taking econ this year and realizing how money moves and money works when we try to get people to donate, to set up fundraisers, I think I might have gone about them slightly differently. The class has made me think about what I’ve done at Loomis and how I would change if I ran something like that in the future.

Q. What were you studying for your Guided Research Project?

A. There’s a lab at UConn that’s starting to grow esophageal tissue using stem cells from a newborn baby’s thigh. These babies are born with a disease called esophageal atresia, which means their esophagus is too short — it doesn’t connect to their stomach, it’s in two sections — and they need to connect the esophagus. Sometimes they can stretch the tissue, but if it’s too large of a gap, they can’t. They need to use intestinal tissue, which causes acid reflux and all kinds of [problems]. So in pigs they’ve designed a polymer scaffolding that can be embedded with stem cells from the pig, and it’ll just grow the rest of the esophagus. It’s amazing. It hasn’t started clinical studies yet in babies, but my project was trying to find the ideal environment for these cells to grow faster in because right now they’re growing too slowly. You’d have to keep opening up the baby and putting in more embedded cells. It would take a couple weeks, and [babies with esophageal atresia] don’t have a couple weeks for it to grow. I was investigating the level of glucose because glucose causes inflammation, and inflammation causes the inflammatory response, and it fixes — heals — things. So I chose a couple growth factors to experiment with to see how much of those growth factors were present after growing the cells in high-glucose medium versus low-glucose medium.

Q. What happened with the project when the campus closed this spring?

A. My project really should have taken me to the end of the year. In the fall we designed our experiments and learned a lot of complicated lab techniques, and then we starting working on our projects the first day we were back in the winter. So I had preliminary results, but I really won’t ever finish my experiments, which is too bad. Dr. [Erica] Gerace said they might have next year’s kids try to finish our projects in the fall.

Q. What have you learned about yourself at Loomis?

A. My time management skills and stress levels have evened out so much. Took a while for that to happen, but it eventually did. I’ve definitely relaxed a lot about every assignment and every paper being a big deal. I went into Loomis just assuming everything [had to be] perfect, like I said with my first chem quiz. By my senior year it was like, “OK, if I can get a solid B on this, I can keep my grade and get through.” Not that I wanted to slack, but when you juggle so much at once — I was juggling a lot senior year, especially senior fall, with being an RA [resident assistant], tour guide, Writing Studio, theater tech, dance, just kind of everything together — it really helped me realize that not everything is going to go well. Also in physics and Multivariable Calc, there were a lot of things designed sort of for us not to do well, for the teacher to find out what we didn’t know. That stressed me out so much at first: “I just got a 70 on this, a 60 on this, a 50 on this. How is this OK?” And they said, “No, really, we just gave you this bell-ringer to see what you didn’t know. We’re going to curve it or it’s not going to count or if it does, it’s going to be worth something like two points.” Going into college I’m so much more relaxed, and I know so much better how to manage my time. If I keep trying to study when I’m too stressed out, I’m not going to learn anything, and I need to either go to the gym or go for a walk or go to the dining hall and sit with my friends for a bit. I’ve realized I can study less and still be as successful when I take those steps, and actually sleep.

Q. Where were you a prefect last year?

A. Cutler. I loved being a prefect. I lived in Cutler for three years. There were so many things that I really liked about my prefects, these people that I looked up to. They were always so relaxed, but the biggest things I remember about my prefects were they didn’t talk to me like I was a freshman. That was something that my friend and I who were prefects together in Cutler had as our main goal. When we would have our little breakout group sessions, you don’t talk down to people. You kind of let them lead everything. And if someone is out past the time they’re supposed to be in their room, give them the benefit of the doubt and ask why because if someone’s filling their water bottle, I’m not going to 7 them. (A “7” is a punishment for a dorm infraction and means the recipient must check in to the dorm early the next evening and do an extra dorm work job.) It was nice to be in that position where I hoped to be what [my prefects were] for me.

Q. Were there things that came out of this spring that you were surprised to discover?

A. I actually felt more in contact with some of the seniors because of our 2020 group chat than I was when I was at school. We had an Instagram account where people would post old freshman pictures, that kind of stuff. Also, I always had wondered what it would be like to live at home again. That definitely wasn’t me asking for a quarantine, but it’s been really nice to live at home. I just kind of forgot what it’s like to live so close to all of my family and to be around my dog all of the time.

Q. What have you done during your summers?

A. I’ve worked basically since I was 14. I have two jobs. I work at a grocery store at the deli, and I’m a lifeguard. I kind of oscillate between the two in the summers. The summer before my sophomore year I went on my LC Scholar trip, which was to Vietnam and Cambodia with [the International Education Programs organized by Loomis’ Alvord Center for Global & Environmental Studies], and I really loved that. But for the most part my summers have been working.

HalimAli

Q. How has this spring of remote learning gone for you?

A. As an exchange student, I was going to be here for only one year, and for that year to be cut short, it was a little bit strange. I’m no longer seeing the people who were making my experience in America incredible. All of that alim attended the Abaarso School of Science and Technology, a boarding school in Somaliland, before spending his senior year at Loomis Chaffee through the ASSIST Scholars program. ASSIST, a nonprofit organization based in the United States, matches academically talented, multi-linwas a bit of a struggle to adjust to, of course. And then Ramadan came in gual international students with American independent schools for oneand fasting while going to school was a little weird because I’d never done that before back home. There were difficulties, but actually this distance year stays. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Halim spent the spring [learning] brought a lot of students together, and we were more in contact term living with his aunt in Alexandria, Virginia, and, like all Loomis than before. We’re constantly in group video calls and stuff like that. Before, we were close and we would have fun together, but this actually added more students, attending classes remotely. The Somaliland borders were meaning to our conversations. closed to stem the spread of the coronavirus, so Halim could not return home until the borders reopened in June.

Q. How did you decide to go to Abaarso?

A. I wanted to go to that school because my friend’s older brother went there, and he would come back to our neighborhood, and I would see him speaking English. Mind you, in Somaliland not a lot of people speak English. At first I was just hearing stories that you learn to speak English there, there are libraries there, they have science labs. Somaliland has very limited resources. At my school before Abaarso, we didn’t have a library, we didn’t have a lab, we barely even had enough resources for the classroom. It was very tough. It was very challenging. So hearing all these stories, I was like, “Ah, I need to go there.” I went there from my eighth-grade year through my junior year.

Q. How did you find out about Loomis?

A. I got into the ASSIST program, and that program matched me with Loomis. Then I did my research on Loomis, and I saw it’s a great place and [decided] I’d love to be part of that school, part of that community.

Q. What are you plans for next year?

A. I decided to go back to Somaliland to take a gap year to give back to my community and work for a year. Also I have other projects that I want to pursue, business ventures, because the opportunity presented [itself ], so I’ll stay there for a year and then come back here for college.

Q. What are your gap year projects?

A. One is working with Abaarso. I’ll be part of the faculty there and work either on their finance team or their academic development team. Also I am starting a company. Essentially it’s an agriculture-based company. We’re creating a bridge between farmers and wholesalers and investing in those farmers and creating like a union of the farmers and essentially bringing up the agriculture quality and the production. We’re investing in farmers and giving them equipment and seeds, and then in return we’re going to be signing deals with wholesalers.

Q. How did the company begin?

A. I met with two [people] who are now my company co-founders and presented them with the idea, and we are in the investment round where we are talking to banks and other venture capitalists. It’s going pretty well, and hopefully we’re set to launch in late July if coronavirus doesn’t disturb the whole situation.

Q. Are your co-founders around your age?

A. No, one of them is 43, and the other one is 32. They work in Somaliland in different companies, and my uncle got me in a meeting with them. I presented the idea. I presented the potential of the business. They liked it, and they had a lot of questions. I was a little naïve and ignorant in certain areas, and I had to go back and do more research, more planning, and had to give them another presentation. But they liked it the first time, so they were interested to hear about it later. When I did my other presentation, they said they were on board.

Q. Did they have any concerns about someone your age starting the company?

A. They did, but I think these persons knowing my uncle helped me. And it’s not the first time I have started a company [although] it’s going to be the first time I’ve started a company of this magnitude. Before, it was a small one, a merchandise company where we made shirts for our school and sold them to students and teachers. So that was a success, and they saw the numbers on that. That kind of boosted their trust.

Q. Some people who take gap years apply to college and then take a year off. Did you do that?

A. I decided not to do that. I’m going to apply next round. I talked to my college counselor and decided to not disturb my plans and take this year at Loomis as a year of learning. Loomis is by far one of the greatest places I’ve ever been to. It’s just a whole difIsland News ferent dynamic, different experience, something that’s sort of magical in a way. I wanted to retain that. I worried the college process might take away some of that experience. So I’m just going to apply next year.

Q. You lived in Batchelder Hall. How was that?

A. Oh, my goodness. I LOVED it there. Incredible. Absolutely amazing. I could talk about Batch for days and never get tired. Mr. Fleming [dorm head Jackson Fleming] was just an incredible human being who genuinely cared about us. You’d normally have long conversations with him about life, about the future, about the history of the school. And everyone there was just extra, extra nice. It’s pretty hard to actually describe it. It was this joy that you never experienced before. I never thought you could be that happy. I thought I knew what happiness was, but then coming to Loomis and especially Batch, it was like, “Wow, there’s this whole other dimension of the happiness that’s unbelievable, incredible.”

Q. What classes this year have especially stood out for you?

A. Two classes at Loomis that I will never forget would be Dr. [Will] Eggers’s class of Voices of Dissent. That was a class that opened my eyes in many ways and showed me what I am capable of as an English student and as a writer. The discussions we had were just so elevated. And Dr. Eggers would really let us take the lead and discuss. But whenever he said something, it was like, “Oh, my goodness.” And the other students would feed off of that energy, and you would want to take a moment and say, “Wow, is this really the type of discussion we are having?” I had other English classes at Loomis, and even though they were all great, that Voices of Dissent class was just a different level. And then you have Mr. [Andrew] Matlack’s [College-Level] AB Calculus class. I am not the best math student, but I loved the challenge of that class. And Mr. Matlack’s way of teaching was really amazing. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Q. Did your previous school prepare you well for the math class here?

A. It’s less technology involved because in Somaliland there are not a lot of resources, but the core of it was similar to the classes here. At Loomis, especially in AB Calc, you’re expected to be on your game at all times. You cannot slack on the class and be lazy. Abaarso math helped me a lot because, one, we kind of had the same curriculum, and two, at Abaarso you were expected to work really, really, really hard. And I think that mentality helped me when I came here.

Q. How do you feel your English skills have changed since you got to Loomis?

A. It’s pretty hard to tell how far you’ve come if you’ve been living it the entire time, but I have been doing a little bit of observation and definitely see a lot of change in not only my English capabilities, but also my awareness of different cultures in general, just from living with different people and being a part of different cultures, something other than Somali. My roommate, Nicky [Wongchamcharoen], was from Thailand. I learned a lot. Nicky and I would always have long conversations about different cultures, his culture, I’d tell him about my culture. It’s a really interesting aspect of Loomis because it’s so rich with diversity that, even without trying at all, you ultimately become a better human being just by being surrounded by all these different cultures and embracing them and observing them.

Q. What sports did you play at Loomis?

A. I love soccer, volleyball, and basketball. In basketball, I’m not as good as [the Loomis] varsity team. I was actually in varsity back home, and I thought I was really good. Then I came here and I saw R.J. [Blakney] playing. (He laughs.) And I was like, “This is not my caliber. I am not going to play basketball here.” I could have played JV, but I wanted to do cardio [fitness class]. I wanted to do workouts, only because we don’t have the same equipment back home, so it was a really good opportunity. Trust me, when I came here, I was a lot skinnier than I am right now. [In the fall] I did intramural soccer. Every day was just a blast. They were the most intense intramural games I’ve ever played. There were a lot of seniors, and we used to challenge each other. We had a pretty good chemistry, and we all wanted to play because we enjoyed it.

Q. How are you feeling now that you are about to graduate?

A. Pretty sad actually. I don’t know how to feel at this point. This cannot be goodbye. Knowing I only have two more days, it’s pretty sad. Definitely not the ending I wanted, or any of us wanted. I don’t know if I ever wanted this to end, but it is what it is. Life happens.

Q. You must be looking forward to seeing your family.

A. I am. This is when I realize that hope is one of the strongest things that humans can have because even when [I was] feeling kind of bad, [I] would think I’ll see my family in x amount of days or x amount of months. That hope kind of lifts your spirit up. I talk to mom and my brothers and sisters every day, and I started paying attention to appreciating every little part of our family.

Q. Your youngest siblings probably have grown up a lot.

A. They have. My youngest sister, who is 3, is actually speaking like a grownup right now. When I left, she could speak, but her language was very basic. It’s amazing and hard at the same time to watch them grow because these little cute things can now have an actual conversation with you. I’m just blown away by her.

Makayla McPherson

Q. What were your first impressions of Loomis as a student instead of a younger sister?

A. To me, Loomis was a mystical place that made Maalik very happy. When I got here, it was 10 times better. Everyone was so welcoming. One of the akayla needed little prompting to “get involved” at Loomis Chaffee, the wise advice often imparted to incoming students. From theater, singing, dance, and sports to chemistry, literature, and everything in between, Makayla pursued her interests with enthusiasm and determithings that drew me to Loomis initially, even when I was still searching for schools, was that idea of community. It just felt so warm, and I really felt nation. And from participating in the Longman Leadership Institute to like I could be part of the community. And when I got there for freshman introducing prospective students to the campus as a tour guide, she orientation and I met my advisee group — one of my closest friends is from my advisee group and some of my other friends are from my very first day applied her outgoing personality to building community on the Island of my freshman year — it was so sweet because everyone was so kind, and I and learning from those around her. During her four years at Loomis, really felt like people genuinely enjoyed being here. she had roles in the musicals Thoroughly Modern Millie and The Old Man

Q. How was the transition academically from your middle school to hear?

A. It was smoother than I expected. That was one thing that I was worried about, going to more challenging classes and seeing how that was going to work out. But one thing that Loomis does really well is support their new students coming in especially, having study halls and advisory groups. My hardest class was probably my freshman year French class because, coming in from middle school, I had a lot of gaps in my French learning. [My transition to French 2 Advanced] was very hard, but it really showed me how much Loomis supports you in terms of the teachers. Ms. [Delphine] Robison was an angel, and she really helped me with that.

Q. What about your social transition?

A. I made a really good, close group of friends coming in. … I initially had a lot of day student friends, and they’re still some of my closest friends, but I also started having more boarder friends as well. Sophomore year I met one of my best friends. She’s a boarder from New York, and I made a bunch of other boarder friends as well. Coming in it was kind of intimidating. I guess you feel a little bit different because you don’t have to leave your family and you’re not as grown up in that sense, so you worry that you won’t be able to relate to the boarders, but that’s definitely not at all the case. I made a lot of friends in theater, Musical Revue, soccer, softball. The more activities I did, the more people I met, people that I wouldn’t necessarily have crossed paths with [because] they were older than me, or just people that wouldn’t have been in my classes.

Q. You played soccer and softball. Did you play on those teams every year?

A. Freshman year I was on III soccer with Coach [Koby] Osei-Mensah, and that was so much fun because I met some of the girls that I overlapped with in softball, but also I made one of my closest friends there. It was just a great experience. And then sophomore, junior, and senior years I did “JV kicks,” as we call it, or JV girls soccer. And I was a captain for JV kicks for the fall this year. JV kicks was super special to me in the sense that we had such a close community, and on top of that we were a very successful team. I’m very proud of them. We had one or two losses over the three years that I was on the team. And then softball. I didn’t necessarily have a spring sport, so I tried III lacrosse freshman year. That was such an experience. Lacrosse isn’t necessarily my thing, I learned, but it was a lot of fun to learn how to handle a stick and cradle. Then I tried softball my sophomore year and absolutely fell in love with it. I had known Coach [Betsy] Conger from freshman year because I had biology with her, and it was so special to have the sports experience with her as well.

Q. Had you played softball before?

A. No, I hadn’t, but I had friends on the team. I learned throughout the season, and it was so much fun.

Q. Are there academic areas or departments that you are particularly passionate about?

A. I enjoy a lot of different subjects. I have really loved English and language a lot, but STEM as well has really attracted me, in the past two years especially. I really love math, and physics and chemistry have been really interesting to me. I took CL Chem [College-Level Chemistry II] this year, and last year I did Physics A[dvanced]. I took Chem Advanced sophomore year, and I really liked it.

Q. What was your hardest class at Loomis?

A. French 2A was really hard for me at the time. It didn’t come [easily] initially because I hadn’t had [some aspects] before. I had to be able to adjust and say, “OK, you don’t get this right now. That doesn’t mean you’re never going to get it. It just means that you need to work a little harder to figure out how to get it and reach out to your teacher and your advisor.” I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything because I think without that experience, it would have taken me longer to learn when to reach out and how to find help if you need it. Another really challenging course I took was CL Satire this winter with [ Jeffrey Scanlon ’79]. Satire itself is so complicated because it’s intrinsically part of our society. We’re a sarcastic Island News society, a sarcastic generation, but you don’t necessarily think about the mechanics of satire and sarcasm until you’re looking at Candide. … And the language was sort of like Shakespeare on steroids because of the convoluted sarcasm and history references that you don’t understand.

Q. In what ways have you changed while you’ve been a Loomis student?

A. Just taking risks. Coming in freshman year, I was nervous and shy in the sense that you don’t want to say the wrong thing, you don’t want to do the wrong thing, because we live in a very social society and there’s a lot of judgment and a lot fear surrounding how you are perceived and how you portray yourself as a person, especially as a teenager. But learning how to find that nook, in a sense, where you feel you are comfortable and being able to share your opinions freely and be yourself without holding a portion of yourself back [are important]. Another thing I learned was reaching out. I’ve always been a very independent person. But [I learned to] recognize when it’s time to step back, when it’s time to reach out, and when it’s time to ask for help. I didn’t want to ask for help because [I thought] it meant I was doing something wrong, or if I didn’t get something immediately, it meant I couldn’t get it at all. Loomis taught me that learning takes time for some people, for other people it’s quicker, and whether some topics will come to you quicker than other things doesn’t mean that you can’t get it. It just means that you need more time, more help, and more experience. Learning that has been incredibly valuable because it’s something that you need to know for life in general. It offers you a lot more peace of mind, I can say. It makes you a lot less stressed out.

Q. Let’s talk about this spring. There are a lot of valid reasons to be sad or to complain about the spring’s disruptions from COVID-19, but are there also things that you’ve learned, or any rays of sunshine that you’ve found, through this experience?

A. There is the temptation to complain. Loomis kids are big complainers. We do tend to like to huff and puff, but I think one of the greatest things was seeing my class adapt, and reject the temptation to complain all the time. There are legitimate reasons to be sad. For me, there are days where it hits me again and again that I’m not at Loomis with my friends, and then there are the days when [I realize we’re] also learning so many valuable skills in terms of how to communicate online. I was supposed to do the I-Tri [Innovation Trimester] for my spring term. Unfortunately that couldn’t work [in a distance-learning environment], so we switched to a design thinking class. We worked with a senior at UConn on a business that she’s working on called Women and Kids Empowerment. She was a basketball player and was under a lot of NCAA restrictions, so she couldn’t promote the business as much as she necessarily wanted to during her time at UConn, but now that she’s graduating, she has a chance to push it to the next level. So we came up with a plan to take her business to the next level and really launch it. [We had to learn] how to do a professional presentation [remotely]. You can’t be there in person. You don’t have those social cues. You can’t look someone in the eyes and know when to switch the screen. Just learning how to do presentations like that digitally and still have a flow and still maintain a professional setting and atmosphere, is one of the things that I know is immediately applicable. Regardless of how long social distancing goes, I’m going to need that skill. And also the idea of adapting. We live in a quickly changing society, so things don’t always work, things go wrong. It’s interesting to see which businesses rose to the challenge [of the pandemic] and which businesses have been succeeding despite the challenges of this strange time and which companies are struggling. [It’s been important] just learning how quickly things can change and not taking things for granted. But also when things do change, how do you react? Do you sit, do you give up, do you moan and cry, or do you say, “OK, this is really sad. I don’t enjoy this, but what are we going to do?”

Q. What else have you been involved in at Loomis that’s been important to your experience?

A. Tour guiding. Ever since I started tour guiding sophomore year, I’ve absolutely loved it. You don’t realize how much you love the school and how much you enjoy little things about the school until you’re speaking about it with someone else, you’re talking about how easy it was to transition here or you’re talking about how much fun it was playing soccer, how much you loved playing softball, with a student who has no idea.

Ryan Armstrong

Q. How did you find out about Loomis?

A. The assistant hockey coach at Loomis, Steve Novador, had been my regular hockey coach in the past. When I first found out about prep schools and was doing tours, it was a very foreign thing to me. I had a cousin that went to Choate, but besides that I didn’t really know what to expect. I toured at Loomis and was blown away by everything, first by the appearance of the school. It was more beautiful than anything I’d seen prior. And we had two tour guides that were phenomenal and just seemed like really good people that I’d wanted to go to school with.

Q. What made you decide on MIT for next year?

A. It definitely was a big leap for the academics, and it was the top academic school that I had a chance of going to that had sports as a big supporting [factor in the application process]. Obviously sports at Loomis was a very large time commitment, so I didn’t have as many clubs as a lot of other applicants had. … I feel like I’ve always done better academically when I have sports, just kind of keeping every part moving and working, not just the mind or just the body.

Q. Do you know what your academic focus will be at MIT?

A. I know it’s going to be engineering, and I’m leaning more towards biological engineering, but nothing terribly official. I’ll have to see when I really get there. I want to see my options freshman year and then fully commit to one of the programs.

Q. Would you describe yourself as a math/science person?

A. I’m a math/science guy, but I have an appreciation for literature and the arts. I find it interesting, and at Loomis a lot of the teachers do a really good job of incorporating history and different background information to keep a book interesting and make it more than just the words on the page. I’m grateful that MIT is not just a math school and that the humanities are something that I still get to take a part in.

Q. MIT has a somewhat different recruiting process for athletics than many other colleges, doesn’t it?

A. Yeah, it makes it pretty brutal. It’s kind of heart-wrenching at times. Basically, no one gets a “commitment” from them before getting admitted. As far as lacrosse, there are prospect days where you go and play in front of the coaches with 60 or 70 other kids trying for the same spot, and then the coaches tell you that you have to get in with academics. You already have to be an applicant that would be ready and fit for MIT. Sports count [on your application] basically like being president of a couple of clubs, a big extracurricular push. But you already have to be competitive and able to survive and do well at MIT.

Q. How long have you been playing lacrosse?

A. I only started playing varsity last year, my junior year, and there wasn’t really any consideration going into the season that I was going to play lacrosse in college. That was just kind of something I did to stay in shape for hockey. And then Coach [Bill] Lee helped me a lot with the recruiting process and contacting coaches and really made it so I was able to do that.

Q. Were you a varsity player from the beginning on the hockey team?

A. Every year I played in varsity games, and I was always considered varsity, but I just had a minimal role. I had a stall in the varsity locker room. I was kind of like a reserve player. I was still very much included in the team. I knew coming in as a freshman to a very good hockey program that my playing consistently was kind of out. I was too young and not developed enough, but the practices and guidance from the coaches was very helpful.

Q. Do you have a preference between hockey and lacrosse?

A. It’s kind of hard because with lacrosse I can be more of an impact player and more dominant, and that gains the coaches’ praise more, so it feels better. But I’ve been playing hockey since I was 4 years old, so it just runs a little bit deeper.

Q. After the hockey team won the New England Large-School Championship this winter, the coaches said you were an important motivator for the team even though you had an injury that prevented you from playing in the tournament. How did you shift your approach?

A. Yeah, I got injured during the last regular-season game, [but] I knew I wasn’t going to just stay at home and rest the injury. It was my senior season. I wanted to see them go [to the tournament] and just be in the locker room. We always have a tradition where we give the starting line up before a game. The person that read the line up at the [previous] game chooses the new person, and I was fortunate enough to be the guy that hyped everyone up at the last game. I had Island News done it previously, and the guys liked the energy, so I did it again. It was nice to have that final contribution even though I was injured.

Q. What was it like when the team won the championship game?

A. It was nice and not nice that one of our teammates scored an empty-net goal with three seconds left. We kind of got two celebrations and not one big one, but it was still nice getting that final goal and that feeling in your stomach of, “We just won this.”

Q. What did the lacrosse team do this spring since sports were canceled?

A. We had Zoom meetings. And [the coaches] also gave us workout plans, different routines to keep us in shape. Coach Lee has done a very good job. We’ve had a very good turnout at all of our Zoom meetings, and we kind of just talk about life. And it is a little bit sad, probably more so for the guys that are four-year players and have put a lot more into this.

Q. How do you think you’ve changed since you came to Loomis?

A. It kind of opened my eyes more. Not that I was closed-minded, but because I came from one public school system all the way up, I didn’t really understand how different everyone can be, in terms of their ideologies and being able to put myself in other people’s shoes. Everyone’s always justified in their mind, and if I disagree with someone, I have to figure why they agree with it. It makes for a more civil and understanding life.

Q. Was that understanding and trying to see things from others’ perspectives useful when you were a prefect?

A. Part of the reason I came to understand [other perspectives] is I had good leadership from the prefects my freshman and sophomore years. They laid out expectations, led by example, were really good role models. I just tried to take the aggregate of their best traits and use that while being a prefect and helping. Sometimes it’s giving tough love when you need to, like when someone won’t do their work job. Other times it’s being the [person] that they can talk to, get help from.

Q. Did you like being a prefect?

A. It was nice. Being relied upon was something I found as a positive. I thought it was going to be a negative because people would always need me, but it felt nice to help the kids that were struggling to adapt, especially the freshmen and new sophomores in their first couple of months at a brand new school with a fairly high work load and higher expectations.

Q. What areas of academics have fascinated you most at Loomis?

A. No. 1, I’d have to say sciences. I started out taking Chem A[dvanced] my freshman year, and then Physics A[dvanced] and CL Physics [College-Level Physics II], and then I took biology term courses this year. Science is logical in the same way that math is, and there’s kind of more to it. It’s more hands-on when it comes to the labs. And especially biology, it’s kind of like a mix between math and history where it’s facts and different things you can kind of touch and hold and see along with the numbers and the logic and data

Q. What was the hardest class you took at Loomis?

A. Dr. [Ben] Fisher, who left last year, his multivariable class. He was treating it like it was a college class. After a test, we’d look up the problems and we’d find them on problem sets from Dartmouth and MIT. I was like, “Oh, my god, no wonder it’s impossible.” He graded us fairly; obviously we weren’t all getting C’s. He curved, but it was hard being exposed to that high a level of [material]. It was still a great experience, but I definitely had to put in a lot of time and effort.

Q. What was one of your proudest accomplishments academically at Loomis?

A. It’s kind of hard because it wasn’t just one math test, it was all of my performance. But I’d probably say in CL [College-Level] Spanish IV. I got a B+ [for the fall term of junior year], which ended up being my lowest grade at Loomis, but it was kind of like a kick in the butt. It was mostly based off of not participating. Turning that around the next two terms and getting A’s, I just kind of looked at that B+ and said, “Haha.”

Q. Who are some faculty members that you’ve particularly close to?

A. Mr. [Edward] Pond and Dr. [Will] Eggers. Pond was my dorm head my freshman year, and then he taught me physics both my sophomore and junior year. And Eggers last year was my English teacher and my advisor, and I had known him from some of the hockey games I’d played on JV. He was one of the coaches my freshman year. They are both incredible people, just so very kind and generous with the academic support that they gave me. They both really pushed me in both of their classes that I was in to do not the just the amount to get the grade I wanted, but to keep going and really see how far I could push it. Overall, the faculty are really supportive in a way that is unmatched by what I’ve seen before. They’re so easy to talk to and very responsive on email and will give honest feedback and criticism and also praise. That’s been a big part in keeping me motivated, always being aware of where I stood with each teacher.

Margarita Demkina

Q. What did your family think about your going to school so far from home?

A. They are really supportive. Mostly it was my choice. They knew that I would have more opportunity studying here in terms of school, in terms of college, extracurricular, choice of classes. I know I wouldn’t have learned as much, I wouldn’t have grown as much, if I weren’t in the States.

Q. How was the transition to Loomis? ident assistant in Ammidon Hall, a visual artist, a dancer, a Cum Laude

A. I actually arrived at Loomis at the end of September because I could not Society inductee, and a leader of the math team, the Pelican Service get my visa on time because they closed all the U.S. embassies in Russia that Organization, and the school’s Model United Nations delegation. She year in August. … I still remember being surprised that everybody was really spoke with us from Moscow, Russia, where she and her parents and welcoming. It was completely not what I expected, in a good way. I had a re ally wonderful advisor, Ms. [Naomi] Appel, who helped me. My roommate her 11-year-old brother were riding out the coronavirus shutdown this was amazing. She showed me everywhere to make sure that I knew where to spring in their home. go. If she couldn’t make it to the meals with me, she would find a friend of hers to make sure I was not alone because I missed orientation and getting to know everyone. The teachers were really understanding, and academically [the transition] was manageable.

Q. Would you recognize your sophomore-year self today?

A. I remember how I felt, in a way, but I do think I’ve changed a lot since then. Sophomore year, despite advanced courses, I still had a lot of free time. I was doing a lot of extracurriculars. … I feel like I still try to do everything. It’s just how I am. I’m stressed if I’m not doing work. I need that good amount of stress to keep me going. But there are a lot of activities that I’ve Photo: Jessica Ravenelle done that are stress-relieving, if it’s a sport, if it’s art, if it’s a club that I’ve been involved in, so I think I’ve had a lot of outlets to express myself in different ways and switch things up.

Q. What are some of the activities you’ve done that have provided some balance?

A. [One of ] the most important activities for me was Student Council. I served as a vice president this year, which I think is a great way to give back to the community, and that is the way to get involved. I did math team, which is more on the academic side, but it’s really exciting. I did PSO [Pelican Service Organization]. I’m a president of PSO and president of the math team too [this year]. I did dance. I’ve been running a Russian Club. We renamed it the Russian Non-Speaking Club because there are only four of us from Russia, so we tried to involve more people. We had people who speak Russian like a kid from Lithuania and a Kazak kid, but we also wanted to involve other Slavic people, like we have two boys from Serbia. We always participated in the Cultural Outbursts [an annual multicultural event on campus]. I think it’s a great way to connect, and I really appreciated all my years at Loomis that people were interested in where I come from and in learning more about the language, traditions, food, politics. Another big one for activities for me was art. I’ve taken art every single year. I took AP Art [College-Level Art Seminar] my junior year, and I did an art independent study this year. That was a creative outlet that I loved.

Q. What was your art independent study this year?

A. It was a fall term course [in painting with art teacher Mark Zunino]. I really loved the time in studio that I had during CL Art because the course is structured mostly around students doing their own kind of work. We usually had themes that we tried to explore. And the style that I have — the thick brush strokes — is something that I discovered last spring, and I kept painting and fooling around with it more and exploring it. I wanted to continue that during the fall too. The main goal [of the independent study] was to continue exploring style and to continue going more abstract. I think my paintings did shift in the fall to, instead of being centered on a subject, taking more creative risks of just depicting action or some energy on the canvas.

… The upside of the quarantine is I have time to paint. I have a corner of my room [back home] that I have dedicated to my oil paintings. I finished a painting since I got here, and I started a new one, which I think is a great exercise in that I’m not always exposed to screens. It definitely helps me to reset my mind. … Things that inspire me in my artwork are the skies, or the sunsets, and there are a lot of fascinating ones that I see now. Those are the primary inspiration source.

Q. Do you have views of sunset from your home?

A. Yes, I live in an apartment building, on the 10th floor, so it oversees the park and a clear skyline. I tried to take pictures so I could look back at them, but it’s not the same. I tried to make mental images, tried to remember the details, but of course it’s hard to remember the precise colors.

Q. You also are pursuing a math independent study project (ISP) this year. What is its focus?

A. I took statistics over the summer after my sophomore year, a full college-credit course. And I’m taking Linear Algebra this year, which is the highest level math course [at Loomis Chaffee], so I wanted to do a continuation of stats, mostly. Data science is something that is really interesting to me and something that I hope to pursue in college. The whole ISP is mostly focused on edX courses, a collection of courses that are comprised within the data science certificate. And I’m doing a final project that I’m presenting to math teacher Mr. [Stuart] Remensnyder, my advisor, and the head of the Math Department, Mr. [ Joseph] Cleary. It actually combines my passions for art and working with a lot of numbers. Basically I wanted to examine who are the top contemporary artists. It’s the 100 top contemporary artists based on how much money they made through auction sales last year. It took me a very long time to find the data access in an open source — people make a lot of money by analyzing those data sets, but I was lucky enough to find some version of it. It’s a huge data set. I had to add a few variables myself, like their age, where they’re from, their gender. I’m trying to examine this data set based on data analysis tools that I’ve learned throughout the year. It was interesting for me to see that there were only 13 women on the list.

Q. Is this type of analysis something you’d consider as a career?

A. I definitely want to do something with numbers. Right now I’m set on studying financial engineering because I’m in the engineering school at Columbia University.

Q. What was the hardest course you took at Loomis?

A. I think the hardest one was CL Physics [College-Level Physics II] with Mr. [Edward] Pond [junior year]. … Not the math component because I’d taken calculus by then. For me the hardest part was the piece that I self-studied that maybe wasn’t solidified as much. (The usual pre-requisite for CL Physics II is Advanced Physics I, and because Margarita had taken the equivalent of regular-level Physics I at a previous school, she studied the more advanced aspects of the course on her own to prepare for CL Physics.) You can’t really teach yourself as much as an in-classroom experience. … I still did well in the class. I would meet with Mr. Pond every week after family-style on Tuesdays. … I mostly liked it. At the time [the course] was hard, but there’s also fun in that because it wasn’t something that I got from the first try. It was something that tests you, tests your resilience, tests your dedication, your willingness to learn more.

Q. You were a resident assistant in Ammidon this year. What parts of the RA experience challenged you or forced you to grow?

A. One of the biggest ones, as all RAs can agree, is the line between friends and a person who is supervising the dorm. [There are] uncomfortable conversations that you just need to learn how to approach, which I think is a great skill, to know how to say something unpleasant or something that might be awkward in a way, being able to overcome that and becoming a braver person. I ask myself a lot how can I be more present and more visible to the people around me. What can I do for them to make their experience [better], to help them feel welcome? That took a lot of self-reflection: How do you make a person feel better through your interactions? How can you be there for them?

Q. What have you learned about yourself at Loomis?

A. That’s a hard one. A lot of things. I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs and even situations where I thought, “That’s it. There’s no way I will be able to do it.” I think I was always able to keep going. The fighting spirit is important to keep in mind. … I also got my own voice, I learned to speak up. I was a head delegate for Model [United Nations] this year. Model U.N. was really challenging for me. It is for everyone, but I remember how I was terrified before the first conference my sophomore year because I’d never done public speaking, let alone public speaking in English. It is really stressful, but that’s the fun of it, and it taught me how to be visible, how to voice myself properly so that others would listen.

Q. How has the year gone as a vice president of the Student Council?

A. It’s a different experience from being a representative because your responsibilities shift into more delegating and mentoring. As a vice president, I do a lot of talking to representatives to make sure they know what they’re doing in task groups, that they’re staying on track and if they’re underperforming or they feel discouraged, maybe having those uncomfortable conversations. … We worked a lot on the revision of the constitution this year as the four officers. It’s been a great constitution however it hadn’t been reviewed in 10 years, so there was a lot of language or procedures that we don’t use. For example, a voting procedure [said] people had to go to Founders, according to the constitution, to vote, instead of just clicking on the link to vote. … For people to take the constitution seriously, we wanted to make sure that it was perfect. And the gendered language was a big step for us. (Student Council will no longer have a girls vice president and boys vice president.) There will be the president, two vice presidents, and the secretary.

Q. How have you spent your summers during high school?

A. I did research last summer. I still hope that it gets published. It’s still pending review. It was a mathheavy topic, which I think helped me discover what I want to do. It was on quantum key distribution. I did it through a research program. I was paired with a professor of mathematics at Oberlin College, and it was a 10-week program. There was a background course on cryptography and coding theory, and then it was my time to do that research and incorporate what I learned in the background course in any topic of my choosing.