Senior Spotlight: Maya Salzman (12-1)

And obviously student government has had a huge influence on my time here. Making the choice to be the grade rep in ninth grade — it has definitely made my time here stressful — has taught me so much about communication. I come away from all these years knowing how to communicate, knowing how to keep things organized, and how to get a group of people to perform a task. It has been really beneficial to me to have that experience. It definitely helped me realize how I can be a leader, that I am a leader, and that I like it. Again, the Masterman community has helped me find my place. I love making relationships with teachers and I think the teachers here are really special. I value my relationship with Mr. Lebold a lot. Ms. Stanford, Mr. Gilligan, Mr. Gilken and I are like best friends; I love the teachers here just as much as I love the kids.

What has been your favorite class at Masterman?

I really liked Mr. Lebold’s physics class. Even though I did slack off a bit towards the end of the year, I love Mr. Lebold, he’s probably my favorite person in the school. He’s just such a joy and I think he’s a good teacher. I always looked forward to his class. I also loved APUSH. I’m a huge history person and I found history to be really exciting. I also liked world history, I just found it really interesting. I’m not super into math but I really like Mr. Tannen’s math class this year, AB calc. I think it's fun and Mr. Tannen is a great teacher. 

What is your favorite memory from cross country?

I have two favorite memories. For the girls team, the top three teams at districts qualify for states and when we ran our race we knew that it was going to be down to the wire if we qualified or not. We were all trying our best to pass people from this one specific school. After the race we were all just waiting and waiting and we didn’t know if we were gonna make it. Our senior girls had never been to states before and then it was down to one point. Then we found out we had made it to states and it was the happiest moment we were all screaming and jumping. And then another moment was during track last year when we were trying to send our 4x800 relay to states and it was the same thing where it was really down to the wire. As soon as the last girl finished we knew we had qualified and we were so happy. 

In your time as SGA grade rep and now President, what is your proudest accomplishment? 

I am proud of the progress we made with the dress code. I am also really proud of how student run SGA is. We do everything that we used to do but now students take the initiative to do things. So I am really proud of that. 

If there was one thing you could change about Masterman what would it be?

While there are a great number of things that I would like to see changed at Masterman, the one thing that I can think of this second is to give high school later lunch. I do not want to be eating lunch at 10:13. I [also] think that Masterman has the potential to expand its educational opportunities. I know that there would be issues with staffing but I just wish we had a more diverse selection of classes. For example, I want to major in environmental studies. A lot of schools offer AP Environmental Science and if we offered a class like that that would benefit me a lot as someone who wants that credit. There are other courses like AP Psychology and others that I think our curriculum would benefit from. And I know that would be difficult to attain but it would be really cool. 

What is some advice you would give to your freshman self?

I would say that things start to move really fast in your junior year so enjoy the time because it is a lot easier than the rest of high school. Take a deep breath. I would tell myself to not worry about finding my niche of friends because it will happen. It is easier than you think. Don’t try to plan that out, you will find it eventually. 

If you could travel to any time and place in history, where would you go?

I would want to travel to when John Miur discovered Yosemite National Park. He was a cartographer that really mapped out our national parks, specifically in the western half of the United States. I feel like that long ago nature was really untouched. It would just be incredible to be the one pioneering those expeditions and mapping that stuff out. Plus, I could have a national park named after me. But there are so many cool times that I would want to go back to. Maybe I would just spend a day in Renaissance London, just a day. Or maybe I’d go to a viking ship. 

Pancakes or waffles?

Pancakes over waffles any day. I go out to brunch all the time and I would never ever dream about getting a waffle. 

Is there anything else you want people to know about you?

I just want the student body to know that I care a lot about the students that go here. I care about people, that is just who I am. I hope they feel like I am approachable and that I care about the things that are important to them. Join the cross country team!