I’ve lived in Medical Lake my entire life, and graduation has always been an impossible distance away. Over these four years I’ve enjoyed being a part of many teams and activities such as our school band and jazz band, Knowledge Bowl team, tennis team, and most prominently the robotics team (FRC 4513 The Circuit Breakers!). It will be hard to leave these incredible groups of people. Next fall, I will be attending Stanford University to study Mathematical and Computational Science. This degree, heavily influenced by my experience in robotics, will allow me to combine my love for mathematics and my enjoyment for programming and discover how they work together. While I don’t know what career I want to pursue with this major, I do know that it will similarly include mathematics and technology. I plan on narrowing down career choices based on my experience in various courses and in summer internships. As a freshman I never truly believed it when people told us how quickly high school would pass. However, I can’t be more excited for my future, learning as much as I can at Stanford, of all places, and finding a career I love. While I’m uncertain what specific career I might be found in, I can guarantee that, whether as a volunteer or a mentor, you’ll still find me involved with robotics.

I flew for the first time at a young age. While boarding a Boeing 747, I caught a glimpse of the cockpit and when the stewardess asked me if I wanted to step inside, I was elated. I saw more buttons, toggles, switches, and gauges than I could count; and I wanted to know what every single one of them did. From that moment on, I was determined to study flight. In the fall, I plan to study Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. I hope to become a proponent of aerospace and defense so that it might inspire others in the way it ensnared me with implicit intricacy and substance and to seek opportunities to combine my two passions: engineering and service.

Emilie Browning and Faraz Abounorinejad placed 2nd in the Washington State solo/ensemble contest with their guitar duet! This is only the second time in school history!