As the first half of the school year comes to an end, John F. Kennedy Memorial High School’s brilliant seniors soon say goodbye to their high school career. Along with being my sister, Vishwa Patel is an outstanding student with great academic achievement and an amazing personality. She often enjoys reading, playing the guitar, and participating in several clubs such as WEvolve. Vishwa is in National English Honors society and is one of the backstage managers for the school plays, as well as an officer for Gaming Unplugged. As her senior year comes to an end, she plans on majoring in Urban Planning. 

Would you say that your high school experience was how you expected it to be? 

Vishwa: I think it was a lot less scary than I expected it to be. Coming into high school, it was the scariest thing in the world, but now it’s almost over and it wasn’t even that bad. Overall, I think it was a lot more fun than I expected. It definitely went by way faster than I imagined. Four years sounds like a long time but it’s almost over and I didn’t even realize it. 

If you had a chance to redo your high school years, would you change anything? If you would, what would you do differently?

I would spend a lot less time stressing over my classes because I spent so much time stressing myself out when there was no reason to. Especially junior year, it was just so much unnecessary stress. I wish I had spent more time doing things I like. 

In your free time, you enjoy reading and listening to music, so what are some books or songs that you enjoy the most? Also is there anything else you do besides extracurricular activities?

My top two favorite books are the “Six of Crows trilogy” and the “Poppy Wars” trilogy, but overall I really enjoy fantasy books. My favorite songs include “Arabella” and “The View From the Afternoon” by Arctic Monkeys. Sometimes I also play the guitar, even though I’m really bad at it. I saw some really cool TikTok videos of people playing the guitar and I was like “oh, I wanna do that”. So, last year for Christmas, my family got me an electric guitar and I’ve been practicing playing songs since. I also like playing volleyball with my friends and my sister and playing with my dogs.  

 Is there a specific reason why you wanted to be a Gaming Unplugged Officer, and wanted to be a big part of the club?

 I don’t know. I just joined the club last year, and just playing board games was relaxing and fun. Actually, my sister forced me to join her but I’m glad she did. The club was just mindless board game-playing, finding new games to play each time. It was interesting and so I thought if I was an officer, I can provide more ideas on how the club could improve and be even more fun for everyone. 

 Who were your favorite teachers? 

Oh, there are so many, but I absolutely love Mrs. Prusicki, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Ebner, Mrs. DellaSerra and Mr. Kaul. Mrs. Prusicki and Mrs. Smith are just so fun and great teachers. Mrs. Ebner was also a great teacher and she helped me improve my writing so much. Mrs. DellaSerra is also really sweet and I really hate math but she made her class very engaging and actually made me want to learn. Mr. Kaul teaches you so much in general and he’s just a really great person. I’ve never had him as a teacher but I’ve talked to him a lot because of stage crew, and he teaches you important things that you don’t learn in school. He even taught me how to make a birdhouse. 

 What are your feelings and thoughts about leaving high school and joining a life in college? Are you excited, or nervous? 

I’m both excited and nervous about it because you know high school is easy and going into college is like “Woah, I got to get a big girl job now”.  I’m planning on majoring in Urban Planning where you develop programs and plans to create communities and create better environments and communities for people. It’s interesting to me because it’s like playing SimCity. This [Urban Planning] is like a real-life version of SimCity but also it’s interesting to make environments better and increase the quality of life for everyone.

What were some of your favorite highlights from high school?

English class in ninth grade was really fun because many of my friends were in that class and Mrs. Prusicki just made that class so fun and actually enjoyable. Most of it [high school] was online, so there’s not much but from senior year, going to all the football games and Garba Night was extremely fun. Oh and, stage crew. Messing around backstage, doing dumb things like learning how to ballroom dance with my friend, you know, that was pretty fun. Those were definitely my favorite memories.