Sailor

Going outside your comfort zone, trying something new, and pushing those boundaries is what NMH allows you to do.

Sailor

Growing up in Bernardston, Massachusetts, Sailor often felt unchallenged in school. That all changed when she came to Northfield Mount Hermon.

“Suddenly, I was surrounded by peers who wanted to excel and truly learn inside and outside the classroom,” Sailor said.

Recalling physics – Sailor’s first class at NMH as a 9th-grader – she said, “I suddenly had to ask more of my own questions and leave my comfort zone. I like to think of that class as kind of the beginning of everything I’ve taken part of at NMH, pushing me outside of that comfort zone and challenging myself.”

Trying new things, challenging herself in and out of the classroom, and reaching outside her comfort zone were central themes during Sailor’s four years as a day student at NMH. An athlete on the ice hockey and track and field teams, Sailor decided during her sophomore year to try out for varsity field hockey, a sport that she had never before played. Though she didn’t make the team (but did play on the JV team), she is glad to have taken a leap of faith trying out an unfamiliar sport. She learned not to fear failure, and during her senior year she even made the varsity team.

“Going outside your comfort zone, trying something new, and pushing those boundaries is what NMH allows you to do,” Sailor said.

As editor of the school yearbook, Gemini, Sailor developed organizational and leadership skills as she learned to delegate, prioritize, and set deadlines.

“I’ve always been more reserved, so coming into this role as yearbook editor has been a big growth for me as a leader to step into that, to communicate, and to speak up,” she said.

In another leadership role, Sailor served the NMH community as an Ecoleader. Ecoleaders comprise a group of students who do off-campus activism and develop campus initiatives to help guide the NMH community toward more sustainable living practices.

This year, the Ecoleaders held their second annual Youth Climate Summit, which drew more than 60 students from NMH and other nearby schools to listen to speakers, engage in workshops, and brainstorm climate crisis action strategies.

“I think it’s important, especially with climate stuff, to build a community across this whole area,” Sailor said, referring to the western Massachusetts community. “Sharing those diverse perspectives and coming together for our climate summit is something that has stood out to me.”

Sailor’s work extended beyond the NMH campus in her French service-learning class. Every Friday, students took a trip to the Northfield Elementary School, where they taught French to a third-grade class.

“I feel like it’s the perfect opportunity to give another facet of learning to young kids and interest them and learn to engage them in class,” she said.

Sailor’s own academic passions lie in neuroscience. As a member of Club for Medics – a group that publishes a schoolwide science journal once per month (as Sailor puts it, students can “research to their heart’s desire” about any STEM topic of their choosing) – Sailor wrote a research paper about neurodegeneration detection in the blood.

“It’s very independent work, but I had a lot of fun researching and writing,” she said. “We put it in a magazine-type of layout and printed it out for anybody who wanted to read it.”

After graduating from NMH this spring, Sailor will study neuroscience at the University of Chicago.

“The challenge of neuroscience is so much is unknown. … It’s kind of behind the scenes almost to me. I’m just interested in exploring that unknown,” she said.

“Connecting back to my anecdotes of my favorite class and my field hockey experience, I think that learning to take risks and challenge myself has been the most transformative part of NMH for me,” Sailor said. “I’m just excited to see in the future what other challenges I’ll take upon myself.

“I think that’s something NMH has given me – that feeling of excitement and readiness to take on new challenges and to take chances.”

— By Maddie Fabian