The SAT made me nostalgic. I don’t think it’s supposed to do that, but, with the time I had left at the end of the writing section, I couldn’t help but think back to the first time I took the SAT,...

Opening up the Google document, I was presented with a workload survey that would take me a good 20 minutes to fill out. Finally I reached the last section that instructed me to answer three free response...

Do you know what to do in the event of an emergency? It might seem like an obvious question. After all, we’ve all run through fire drills and earthquake drills and lockdown drills since elementary school,...

One question I often get these days with regard to books is, "Isn’t it all online?" I’ll usually respond with, "Well, we’re not quite at that stage yet." When someone asks "Isn’t everything online?",...

The first graded essay that I ever handed in at Harvard-Westlake got a B-. My short, awkward seventh-grade self quietly stared at what I thought was a definite sign of my failure as I began to lose any...

I’ve been really busy these past couple of weeks. In the past week alone, every single one of my classes has either tested or assigned a project or essay. Now, the logical thing to do would be to pack...

Earlier this month, I had a very personal and inspiring conversation with Harvard-Westlake trustee Joni Hamilton. Upon discovering she was an alumna of Westlake school, I was immediately curious about...

I am mixed race, or, at least, I am trying to be. It is not easy when everyone around me expects me to be black. I walk around school with a red, black and green Africa necklace hanging down to my belly...

I can’t speak with any conviction about much of anything that happened in the ancient Greek acropolises and I don’t know any Greek letters beyond what we’ve been forced to learn for math. One thing...

I felt like crying right there in the middle of the baggage claim, and it wasn’t because I was happy to see my mom, who was hugging me now, holding me tight as though she believed that, if she squeezed...

One of my goals in life is to step on the soil of every single country in the world. Not quite realistic, I know, but I like the sound of it. This summer, I added Mongolia to my short list of countries...

A few days ago, my uncle and I somehow got into a disagreement over whether Sydney or Canberra is the capital of Australia. After a bet was made, an iPhone was whipped out, "capital city of Australia"...