NWHS salutatorian: Matthew Oh

Matthew Oh

by PATTI STOKES

Matthew Oh

Matthew Oh got many of his required classes out of the way in his first two years of high school, then focused on taking AP classes; most were in math and science, which is where he excels. “I felt I had a good handle on those just from the class lectures and discussion, so I didn’t have to spend too much time studying for them outside of class,” he said in a recent interview.

AP World History was a bit different, he said, probably for two reasons – it required a lot of memorizing, and test questions were essay-based, so not as clear-cut as with his science and math exams.

Still, Oh managed just fine and graduated as class salutatorian with a 4.81 GPA (grade-point average), only .01 grade point behind the class valedictorian.

Graduating at the top of his class crossed his mind in his fi rst few years of high school, but Oh said as time went by he realized this: “If you focus too much on your placement in the class, it’s a pretty bad infl uence on your experience, so I just focused on being happy and getting into a good college as my main goal instead of being at the top of the class.”

He participated in several high school clubs, including Science Olympiad, Environmental Club, Math Club – and Speech and Debate Team. He said he took Speech and Debate in his sophomore year because during middle school he had been very shy about public speaking and he wanted to improve in that area.

And it worked.

“I really fell in love with the (Speech and Debate) community and club activities, and will definitely miss that,” he said.

Of some of the teachers Oh most enjoyed learning from, his 10th grade English teacher, Sarah Hutchinson, stands out.

“It (Hutchinson’s class) was a very open and welcoming community and we had a lot of discussions. I think that’s the only class I’ve ever felt where whatever you said would be acceptable… I kind of played devil’s advocate a lot in our discussions,” Oh said. “No matter how radical the ideas I threw out in that class, Ms. Hutchinson would take it in stride and it was a very good experience.”

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