by Claudia Casal and Arnav Singhal

People and Sports Editors

Senior Landon Leu is in the homestretch as he enters his final year of high school, preparing for college by making the most of his classes and spending the summer volunteering in Costa Rica. 

This Nutella-loving senior fills up his schedule through his many classes such as AP Statistics, Economics Honors, AP Physics 1, and AP Government, and his favorite, AP Spanish, commenting, “Throughout my high school experience, I’ve been taking Spanish. We’ve been doing a lot of cool activities and I’ve been learning a lot about other cultures… just, overall, a really good class.” Aside from Spanish, Leu tries to avoid essays wherever he can, preferring to put his efforts into the sciences. While he hasn’t decided on a college major, Landon hopes to explore new places along with his interest in biology. After school, you can find Leu hanging out at the library doing his homework and making new friends through many card games.

Leu’s interest in both Spanish language and Hispanic culture carries beyond his AP Spanish classroom. This past summer, Leu participated in the Amigos de las Americas program. Amigos offers an opportunity for high school students to spend a few weeks doing community projects in native Spanish-speaking countries. Throughout the program, Leu spent several weeks in El Campo, Costa Rica, where he helped paint an elementary school and dug water irrigation pathways for the community. During his stay, Leu resided with a Costa Rican host family and recalled the language barrier as his main challenge. Which he overcame using a method he learned in his Spanish 2 class called circumlocution, where one describes their intended word using similar words or phrases. He highlighted his favorite memories doing community projects with the children, eating fresh mangoes with toast with Mr. Shanka, his advisor, and making fresh dark chocolate from handpicked cacao. Overall, he recalls the program as a great opportunity to, as he pointed out, “connect with a bunch of community members and develop new skills that I didn’t know I had.”

This senior, often found greeting everyone in the hallway or wreaking havoc in his AP Physics class, is saying his final goodbyes. Moving on from high school, this senior is looking forward to attending college and exploring his options before committing to a major. With his sights set on NYU, Leu plans to make the most of the year by pulling pranks in Spanish class, eating plenty of Nutella, and taking his own advice to, “take every opportunity life throws at you.”