An Interview with Marla Zacks, Class of '24

When we finished last month’s issue, it came time to consider who we would interview next. Our team sat for days and weeks, letting the procrastination hit us hard. Talk about senioritis, am I right? With an approaching deadline, we decided to interview a good friend of mine, Marla Zacks. 

I’ve known Marla since we were kids, but I talked to her for the first time last year. Her friends know her for her intelligence and unique sense of humor. One teasingly said, “The amount of sarcasm and cynicism Marla possesses would kill a normal person.” Marla chose to answer many of our questions in that spirit.

Marla’s biggest co-curricular commitment is music. She started studying percussion in fourth grade. When asked why she chose percussion, Marla said, “I have no idea… probably because it looked cool.” Marla has participated in the Worcester Symphony Youth Orchestra (WYSO) for the past four years, and was promoted to section leader as a sophomore. As section leader, Marla oversees four other percussionists. Marla has also participated in the Massachusetts Senior Central District and Massachusetts Senior All-State Music festivals during all four years of high school. This year, Marla was chosen as the first chair percussionist for the Massachusetts All-State Band. “I was the top scorer in the state, which means I totally slayed my audition.”

When asked about her studies, it’s clear that Marla excels. Last year, she received the Harvard Book Award from the Harvard Club of Worcester for her good grades. She is a member of the National Honors Society and Tri-M. She is also the Co-Aedile (Events Planner) of the National Latin Honors Society. Her favorite class in high school was AP Chemistry, which inspired her to work at UMass Chan Medical School last summer. “My mother works at UMass Chan… and I was like, ‘Mom, help me!’ Just kidding. I totally went out and got the job on my own. Anyway… I worked in this lab that studies mRNA. I was looking at these worms that were injected with CRISPR and counting their babies. And that was basically it.” When asked if she’d held any other jobs in high school, Marla said, “No, I’m too lazy.”

In her free time, Marla expressed her interest in playing word games. She began to show us her stats: “I’m cracked at Word Hunt… according to GamePigeon, I have 3,179 word game wins, and of those, 2,648 are Word Hunt. Oh, and I wrote one of my college essays about liking word games, because I’m a nerd.” Marla also enjoys listening to music of all genres, noting that “my top genre on Spotify is classical, because I’m an intellectual.”

Marla is still waiting to hear back from colleges, but she knows that she wants to study chemistry or biochemistry. When asked where she sees herself in ten years, she said, “Living, and breathing, and probably working somewhere.” It’s safe to say that no matter what Marla does, she’ll give it her all.