Senior Marcella Hill is the valedictorian of the Morgan Park High School Class of 2010. She has an unweighted GPA of 3.96/4.0 and earned a 25 on the ACT.
Senior Marcella Hill is the valedictorian of the Morgan Park High School Class of 2010. She has an unweighted GPA of 3.96/4.0 and earned a 25 on the ACT.
Marcella has college aspirations, as she has applied and was accepted at a number of post-secondary institutions, including Howard University, Tuskegee University, University of Southern California, Duke University, Clemson University, University of Pennsylvania, Georgetown University and George Washington University. However, she ultimately decided to accept the University of Pennsylvania invitation for acceptance.
Education is important to her, she said, because “it opens the door to opportunities.” She realizes that in today’s society, a master’s degree at the very least is required to guarantee a decent paying job.
The International Baccalaureate student added, “Education is also important because it introduces people to new things and allows individuals to broaden their horizons. In many cases, students reshape or broaden their thinking while in college. Education, I think can be used to decrease racial tension. Most racial tension is due to lack of understanding of each other’s cultures.”
The top MP student’s favorite subject is psychology. One of the reasons is because Marcella said her teacher, Mrs. Pries, makes the class extremely interesting. She allows us to do engaging projects. For example, when studying social norms, (which are a set of unwritten rules that people follow in a society) the class assignment was to do something that wasn’t socially accepted and reflect on it. Marcella decided to wear a wedding dress on a regular day to all her appointments and activities. She says her social experiment showed her why people may act a certain way and why people exhibit different types of behavior.
“This information allows me to reflect on my own behavior and try to improve myself and some of my flaws,” Marcella said.
Marcella also believes the main key to success is hard work. “I believe one of the main reasons I was so successful in high school was because of my work ethic,” she says. “If you work hard and you are committed to your goals you are bound to be successful.”
Copyright 2010 Chicago Defender.
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