Senior Profile: Addie Marcheschi

Jing Wang -- May 12

College. Decisions.

Your four years of all-nighters, crammed schedules, and discipline led to this. The cursor on your computer blinks. It hovers over the button that will paint your entire future. Your hands are slightly shaky; your breaths shorten. You glance at the red rectangle on the top of your phone screen, catch your reflection, quickly smile, and then look back at your computer. You remind yourself to smell the flowers and blow out the candles, and as your breath comes out and the crescendo in your heart comes to a fortissimo, you click.

Whether you end up with happy tears or brutal disappointment, you are not alone in the nerve-wracking experience. Every March, millions of seniors (and some juniors I guess; those overachievers) go through the same thing multiple times. Our beloved senior, Addison Marcheschi, has gone through it twice when she got her decisions for her applications, and she’s going to be studying architecture at Utah Valley University. A lot of people, including myself, have questions on how to figure yourself out and maximize your time in high school, and through my interview with Ms. Marcheschi, my insight towards the topic has broadened. Let’s explore the questions many high school students have and Addie’s take on them. 

How do you choose a major?

Growing up, Addie was encouraged to try many new things…And one of them stuck to her: designing and building things. As a child (and even now), she absolutely loves creating and building Lego houses and machines. The first three years of high school came and went, and, like many people, Addie didn’t really know what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. It’s a daunting decision. However, with her love of math, she knew she wanted to pursue something in STEM. Gradually in the last year, her interest in architecture became more solidified, and she decided to put that as her intended major. She also had civil engineering, something that her grandpa pursued, as one of her backups.

Which college do I want to go to? How do I pick one to commit?

The college search can be tough. Addie started looking around May of last year and was looking for a specific 5-year-architecture bachelor program. It’s important to not only consider how good the college's name is but also how good their program is for what you want to study. She came across two that she liked: Cal Poly SLO and Utah Valley University (UVU). Cal Poly SLO has an amazing program for architecture--it’s rated as one of the top 5 in the country. On the other hand, UVU’s architecture program is relatively new, so its reputation and overall success of the program hasn’t been established quite yet. Of course, if you got waitlisted or rejected from a college, you can’t commit to them (unless you have an uno reverse card handy). Addie chose to commit to UVU because 

she has family close to the college

her family members have attended UVU

its campus is beautiful

she got an academic scholarship from them

What classes and extracurricular activities did it take to get into college?

Whether you take AP or honors classes in certain subjects is completely up to you and your understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. That being said, Addie took AP Euro sophomore year; APUSH, AP Lang, and Honors Pre-Calc junior year; and AP Calc and Honors Wind Ensemble senior year. Relating to those classes, Addie says that her biggest accomplishment was maintaining a 4.0 all four years. Academic weapon who? Moving onto extracurriculars, doing what you are passionate about is the most important thing. What you choose to do with your free time should benefit you--make you happy--and not just be another checkbox you need to get into college. These are just things that Addie loves and feels passionate about: 

Basketball. She played for the first three years of high school, and this sport helped her create friendships and great memories that will stay with her after high school.

Music. Maybe you’ve seen her around, but Addie is very present in the music scene. She’s been playing piano since she was four. She also plays the cello, trumpet, and percussion for the school. She has attended a few years of private lessons for cello and played the trumpet since fifth grade. Thanks to her involvement in music, she has made one of the happiest memories of high school: playing with pep band for the homecoming game this year. Playing music for so long has shaped Addie in numerous ways and she says that ”playing music has helped me realize the value of practice and putting in effort towards something I am passionate about.” 

What advice would you give to your high schoolers/younger self/juniors going to be seniors?

Time. Is. Precious. Spend time with your friends and hold them close. Make sure you don’t chew off more than you can handle; have a healthy work-life balance. Yes, taking another AP class can increase your GPA by a bit, but is that bit worth spending nights doing homework instead of making memories with friends? You only have one youth. Remember this, juniors. Moving on, Addie would tell her younger self to stop procrastinating and learn how to study. We all have academic habits we’re not too proud of and working on changing them will almost always be worth it. 

Alright, closing statement. I don’t really have much to say other than I hope you learned something from this interview with Ms. Senior Addie. She was patient enough to fill out my thorough 16-question interview with thoughtful answers, so let's just thank her for that. Again, I hope you take something from this article and have a great month!