Senior Spotlight: Shirley Zhang (12-4)

For some reason, this year I picked up having plants like gardening and stuff. So now my room is overturned with plants and stuff and my mom just gets so annoyed. When she comes into my room she’s like, “a person does not need this many plants,” and I’m like “Mom, just let me live!”

What are your plans for college?

I think in college I plan to study in a science field. I know it’s really typical— like, Masterman student goes into science, what’s new— but that’s just really what I’ve written for college when I applied. All my majors are basically health science, so right now we’re sticking with the biology/health science route, but aside from that I definitely really want to study languages, and maybe study abroad if possible. The pandemic might affect some of that, but I definitely plan to have a science major, but minor in fields that I think are also really interesting that aren’t necessarily a future career path. I plan to minor in French and Mandarin so I think that would be really fun. Also meeting a bunch of different people!

Where do you think you’ll be in 10 years?

Ever since I was little, I was always thinking, well, 10 years from now I’ll be 28, so I might be a doctor, we’ll see. I also might be a researcher, a scientist, wearing a white lab coat, or maybe I won’t be doing any of that. Maybe I’ll change my major in college and go into business or something. I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be in ten years but I hope I’ll find out in college and that I have fun along the way!

What do you think you’ll miss most about high school? What do you think you won’t miss?

I’m definitely going to miss a lot of my friends. I’ll miss getting to know the different grades because I’m in a bunch of different clubs. Even this year, it’s never too late to get closer with people! I’ll definitely miss that part and just like sitting around the school. There were places that my friends and I have just stuck to like, I don’t know, sitting? In my junior or sophomore year, my friends and I, every day after school, would go to the second floor hallway and we sit there for hours and hours and just talk or study. I’ll miss just being able to walk around Masterman. I know it’s kind of crummy and you know, not the cleanest but after spending all those years there you really get to know it really well. I’ll miss being so familiar with all of my surroundings like that. I don’t want to say that I won’t miss anything but I definitely won’t miss the food!

If you could tell your freshman self something about high school, what would it be?

Honestly, I think I would tell myself to be more organized. I guess this is something that I’ve just learned this year but being organized can save you so much! I saw my friends do it before so that’s partly why I decided to get more organized this year. For a bit, especially in my junior year, I was like “just YOLO it,” but no! Basically, if you’re more organized you can have more fun later.

I don’t really remember if there were any seniors, especially when I was a freshman and a sophomore, that there was any senior that was particularly friendly? I was close with the grade above me but I don’t know if I ever talked to them about advice or anything so I just wished someone had told me that if I were more organized, and I did all that I needed to do, that I could spend the rest of my time just goofing around and I wouldn’t be stressed or pulling all-nighters.

How have clubs (yearbook and volleyball) impacted your experience at Masterman?

When I was a freshman, I wasn’t planning to play [volleyball] at all. My freshman year, I managed the team and so I actually got into that because my friends at orientation were like “Shirley, you should play volleyball,” and I was like “I’m not going to do that, I’m really bad at volleyball,” and they were like “okay fine, how about you manage?” and I was like “okay, I’ll get out of Options that way,” and so I managed volleyball and I was like, “wait, this is actually really fun.” If you ask any of the freshmen on the team, it was crazy, we had so many inside jokes and we didn’t win a single game that year, not even one! We didn’t win a single game but I feel like that was the year that I had the most fun with people. One thing that I learned from volleyball is just that it can really help you, or at least helped me, make friends with people who don’t necessarily have the same interests. We all had volleyball in common but other than that we all did so many different things. It really impacted me with learning how to work with other people and I would definitely attribute it to helping me make friends and just learn a lot about different people.

Yearbook was definitely really interesting because Madame used to be the sponsor for it and getting through a club with Madame was definitely interesting. It was very… should I say rigorous? Because Madame had a lot of expectations and it really helped me learn to step up and be a leader— especially this year, since I’m the Senior Editor and I have so many responsibilities. Do I regret [taking on this much responsibility?] Yes, but you know, we’re already here. I’m almost done with my senior year so I would definitely say to make sure you do things that you find fun because I did find both of them fun. Even though occasionally they weren’t as fun as they could be, [clubs] definitely were still fun and I still enjoyed them.

How did they impact me? I was rushing around like a mad man. I remember I had my yearbook meeting and volleyball practice at the same time so I left halfway through yearbook to get to volleyball late. I had games during that same time and I was like “what is even happening?” I definitely kept myself busy.

Both clubs taught me a lot about community and leadership.

Do you have a favorite quote or joke?

Basically, I’m pretty sure my sophomore year, Madame, she said this exact quote to me. She was like, “Geneviéve, why are you crying?” and I was like, “I don’t know.” That’s a quote that’s definitely stuck with me because I was like “oh my god, Madame caught me crying.”