Senior Spotlights: Noel Chacko (12-1)
Laura Shin (12-3)
What are you looking forward to at college? (Noel is going to Temple).
I’m excited to shake things up. Meet new people. Be independent. I’m going to be rooming with Yuan; I think it’ll be good for us to figure things out together while also being independent in a new environment.
Favorite memory from senior year?
My favorite memory was different friend groups coming together to play games online. To name-drop the people who played: Maxwell Pargeon, Yi-Hua Liu, Maxwell Finnegan, Jack Hourigan, Miles Meola, Josh Thekkumthala, Jaden Howard, Guillem Graña-Garriga, Kai Mai, Yuan Liu, Jacob Smollen, Brian Lu, Julian Alamo-Rosas, Kaveen Harohalli, Javari Cherry, Jose Tellez-Torres, Ricky Lee, Abel Chacko, Caleb Townsend, and Kevin Guan. Also, playing Among Us in the beginning of the year with so many different people.
If you could give one piece of advice to your freshman self, what would it be?
Try to find a passion for learning. Don’t think of school as a chore. Learn with people, and see yourself growing each day. You’re at school anyway, might as well make it fun.
As a professional baller for Masterman’s boys basketball team, what are some of your favorite moments from any past seasons?
Photo courtesy of Noel Chacko (12-1)
I think it would be Jose DaSilva hitting the buzzer-beater at the end of this one game. But, uh we were already down seventeen points. We were bound to lose. What I think is really incredible is what Mr. Tannen was able to do with the team: he took some random guys from the tryouts, people from different grades and different backgrounds, and was able to make us into a family. He also imprinted his morals onto us. He taught us to work hard, be kind, and be someone who really cares. He was a great coach, but also a great person and a great mentor. That was my favorite part about basketball, just getting to see him everyday.
You also create videos for Voices. What inspired you to start that kind of journalism?
I started out doing videos because of NHD. Me and the guys honestly weren’t too good of friends with each other before NHD, but after we made that group, we’re kind of like brothers. We’re always doing stuff together; we joined Voices together. I think it really stemmed from there. For me, making videos feels like an everyday thing now. I like documenting things; I think it’s a shame when you don’t take photos or take videos, because you lose that moment in time.
Journalism or not, I’ll definitely continue making videos in college.
Do you have any tips for students seeking employment? (Noel works at Giant).
Ask your friends where they work, and if they have any good job opportunities where they’re at. Ask them about the salary, the work environment, if it’s hard or easy. Honestly, if you seek out stuff online and apply to a bunch of different jobs, you can find out what’s good or what’s bad for you, because there’s a lot of jobs out there. When I was contemplating finding work, Javari told me that working at Giant was “easy money”, and it actually turned out great. The process doesn’t have to be hard if you try.
Biggest Masterman pet peeve?
Not letting us use the gym and the roof to play basketball whenever we want. They’re like, gatekeeping the use of it for no apparent reason. [He was very passionate about this.]
Cats or dogs?
Dogs.
If you could be any fictional character for one day, who would you be and why?
Can we just skip this one? I don’t really watch movies or read books or anything so I don’t really know any fictional characters.
[After some prompting, Noel decided that just being in the Avatar the Last Airbender universe would suffice.]
What would you like to see change at Masterman?
Everybody is so much closer now that we’re seniors, and we should be able to make that kind of tight-knit relationship a reality during our freshman year. Because now, you can just text anybody. There should be some way to get what we have in our senior year as freshmen.