Student Spotlight: Juan Zamudio

9th grader Juan Zamudio attends Noble Street College Prep, Founding Campus of Noble Street Charter School. His favorite class is physics in which he recently learned how to calculate acceleration and velocity. The hardest part about high school, he says, is to be a freshman. “You have to catch up to everybody else. You’re the smallest one.” He combats that by participating in a lot of school activities – his favorite is soccer; he plays defense for Noble’s varsity team. His favorite club is Real Madrid and his favorite player is Cristiano Ronaldo.

Since Juan attends a college preparatory school, naturally, he is already starting to think about where he will go next. In sixth grade, he visited University of Wisconsin-Madison and thoroughly enjoyed it. He also thinks well of Lake Forest College which is where his sister will attend next year. No matter where he ends up, Juan plans to prepare by getting good grades and joining the National Honor Society. You can do it, Juan!

Once in college, Juan would like to study in preparation for his dream job – architect. “I like designing things and drawing,” he says,”… I want to design a building that has my name in it.” He’s not the only aspiring architect at Cabrini Connections. Israel Dosie has similar dreams, and they’re on the same Cabrini Madness team (“The Green Team”). Perhaps they will find a way to put their design skills to use.

Juan joined Cabrini Connections last year after hearing about our program from his sister. He and his mentor, Charlie Megan, meet on Wednesday nights and primarily work on math. “Charlie teaches me different methods to remember things,” he says. “He makes it simple.” Thinking back to when they first met, one thing sticks out that helped them get to know each other – a trip to McDonald’s!

For 2010, Juan’s resolution is simply “to have fun.” We hope you have a lot of fun at Cabrini Connections, Juan. Congratulations on being in the spotlight!