A.B. Davis: “We can all win”
Anne-Blythe Davis was a full time student at OHS for high school, took a single course in eighth grade, and now attends Duke University. Anna, or “A.B.” as her friends call her, had always thought that she would be a biology major until she attended OHS were she was inspired by the rigorous math courses. According to her, the class descriptions at OHS were incredibly intriguing and motivated her to attend. The math curriculum that goes beyond calculus prepared her well for her math major at Duke, regarding the rigor of academics at OHS as very similar to college. She credits OHS professors for inspiring and aiding her in the mathematics field: “OHS is great at fostering relationships between professors and peers,” and also cites various role models that she is still in contact with today.
Her friends, clubs, classes and experience with tense social situations all helped her make the large social transition from an online high school to college. A.B. thinks that the block schedule, the rigorous academics, and engaging professors at OHS also helped her immensely with the transition The perspective that OHS provides, which greatly differs from a typical high school, has also helped her to make the leap into the collegiate world. She watches her fellow college students, often reflecting back on her freshman year of high school thinking “it [was] intimidating what we were thrown into in 9th grade.”
A young woman of many interests, A.B. contemplates two memorable facts about her, eventually deciding that the most intriguing are her tractor-driving abilities, and that she was once chased by a bear. Prodding further into the story, AB claims that there was a bear in her backyard, supposedly a frequent occurrence, and she ran back inside before it could reach her.
Reflecting back on her time at OHS, A.B. ponders what she would change, coming to the wholehearted conclusion that “it was a good experience and overall [she] wouldn’t change much.” A.B. wishes she had been more outgoing and expressive of her interests, claiming that she could have found peers with similar passions earlier than she did. She had been dead set on one track—being a biology major—for a long time, and says that perhaps she could go back to change that. As for the future, A.B. does not have a set plan, but simply “[hopes to] graduate, get a job, [or] go to grad school maybe.” She sees possibility in the finance field, but plans to use her mathematical skills in any field she enters.
A.B. advises OHSers to take advantage of the hard classes and all that OHS has to offer, urging everyone to “[not] be afraid to get bad grades, [because] it’s not going to hurt you.” She advises us all to study a lot, and instead of seeing peers as competitors see them as fellow comrades: “we can all win.”