Meet a Sora Schools Graduate, Ava

Hi, my name is Ava.

I'm a graduate of Sora School's class of 2022, and I'm currently a junior at Connecticut College.

It's really difficult for me to quantify exactly how many ways in which Sora shaped me as a student, as an aspiring professional, and as a person. But I think what really stands out to me is the flexibility that Sora gave me to really chart my own path through high school and determine how I wanted to fulfill my high school requirements while also remaining competitive for college.

There are two things that stand out to me about this. One is that I was given the opportunity in my senior year to help design and co-lead an expedition on a topic of my own choosing, which ended up being themes of heroism and sacrifice in Greek mythology. Not only did this obviously spark me to dive really deep into this topic, but I also was encouraged to think really critically about how I wanted to synthesize these ideas and what I wanted my peers to take away from this class. This was a really unique opportunity that I'm only just now getting the chance to try to recreate as an upperclassman in college.

I was also able to complete a two-year research project and present my findings to the wider Sora community, again, on a topic of my choosing. I ended up putting together an informed proposal about the physical and psychological effects of nature on humans and how they can be used to mitigate the negative effects of deep space travel. Not only did this obviously broaden my knowledge of this very niche subject, but I also developed so many soft skills that I find myself using in my day-to-day life at college today. I'm thinking of course of time management, of the ability to structure my own schedule and my own learning and set my own deadlines. But I also am thinking really specifically of public speaking.

At Sora, we were speaking every single day to our peers, to our teachers. We were talking about what we were learning and sort of defending points. and presenting research. And in this particular instance, I was able to not only present to my peers, my teachers, the Sora community at large, but also to a group of industry mentors who were invited to come in and watch this event called the Student Showcase, which is an annual event of Sora exemplary student work.

What's really remarkable about these opportunities that I was given was that I was able to pursue them while also dancing ballet pre-professionally for upwards of 25 hours a week. Sora really gave me the flexibility to achieve my goals both on stage and off. I was able to pursue academic rigor in high school while dancing all the time. I was able to take a gap year to pursue dance professionally and then return to a high level of academic rigor in college.

Now that I'm at college, I think that the impact that Sora has had on me has really helped define my path. I'm currently a double major in philosophy and psychology with intentions of completing an interdisciplinary honors thesis in my senior year. I definitely think that without Sora, I would not have had such a clear idea of what I wanted to study coming into college. And I would have had to spend a lot of time working on refining these skills that I was instead able to just come into college with having already mastered. And the best thing about it is that I didn't even realize that I was developing these skills at the time because I was having so much fun.

Ava

Class of 2022