Annelise Goldman '18

When Beacon Academy alumna Annelise Goldman (‘18) started her college career at Rice University in Houston, she never thought that she would bond with her future best friends over their shared experiences with IB education.

 

“I was not very surprised to find other students who had similar IB experiences, since the program is standardized enough that we would all likely have similar experiences in classes,” said Annelise. “However, it was really cool that because of IB I had a connection with students from all over the world — two of my closest friends I first started talking to because we realized we all did IB, and one of them is an international student from Chile and the other is from Oklahoma. It was really exciting to me to have an automatic connection with people from very different backgrounds from mine because of IB.”

 

Annelise was a member of the first full class to graduate from Beacon. After transferring from Loyola Academy during her sophomore year, she felt more comfortable at Beacon where the project-based learning methods were more in tune with what she had experienced during her elementary school years. Some of the classes Annelise took at Beacon, IB English, Theory of Knowledge, and HL Chemistry, helped her confidence at Beacon and later at Rice.

 

“When I got to Rice, I decided to take General Chemistry my first semester because I wanted to ensure that I had a solid foundation in the subject,” Annelise said. “I found that even though Gen Chem was taught very differently from how I’d learned chemistry before, because of my IB Chem experience I felt well prepared to tackle the material. Because I had this background, I felt confident enough academically my first semester to concentrate on adjusting to other aspects of the college experience, such as making friends and the tough midterm exam schedule.”

 

Annelise has a clear vision about her future college career path. Her goal is to obtain a degree in environmental science while focusing on the effects of climate change. Eventually, Annelise wants to pursue a doctorate in the field. She always has been curious about environmental science and her time at Beacon helped foster that.

 

When asked what she remembers most about Beacon, Annelise doesn’t hesitate with her response. “One of my favorite things about Beacon is that it is small enough that I was able to make close connections with my teachers both inside and outside of the classroom, and that teachers genuinely care about getting to know students. I really enjoyed talking with teachers outside of class to ask questions and dig more deeply into material we’d learned in class. Now that I’ve graduated, I’d say that many of these originally academically-based interactions have turned into genuine friendships and mentorships that are very meaningful to me.”