While sophomore Bryan Xu is technically a second-year student, by just looking at his schedule, you’d think he was about to graduate. Between Academic Decathlon, yearbook and the swim team, Xu is navigating his education in a way that’s different from the average sophomore.
Before moving to Beverly from Texas, Xu had a massive head start. “When I first came to school, I had a lot of prerequisites already,” Xu said. In fact, he finished Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Pre-calculus back in middle school, so his counselor let him jump right into advanced courses.
Now, Xu is taking some of the most difficult classes available. He is one of the only sophomores in his AP Chem class, and even though the workload is intense, he is proving that he can keep up with the seniors.
Being a sophomore in a room full of seniors isn’t always easy. Xu mentioned that the social side of things is one of the biggest challenges. “I would say the environment is different… in a classroom filled with all older people, these people already have their own friends,” he explained. It can be awkward being the youngest person in the room, but he’s handled it by being open and “talking with older classmates so we can both learn and succeed together.”
Xu doesn’t just leave his love for learning in the classroom; he carries that academic drive into his extracurriculars, specifically with the AcaDeca team.
“I feel like I’m good at memorizing, so this club is very good for me,” he said. But it’s not just about studying; he really likes the team bonding aspect, saying, “the team bonding, the friends you make is also very important,” which has helped him find a community of people who share similar interests.
Yearbook is another big part of Xu’s life, but it has a totally different vibe from his other classes. “[I think] being an observer is very important because you want to share the knowledge and the events with people who maybe didn’t attend,” Xu said. Additionally, it has helped him come out of his shell. Xu said that he “wasn’t a very outgoing kid in middle school,” but interviewing people for the yearbook has forced him to build many new connections.
Xu’s main goal is to be involved. He chose these activities because “they seemed the most appealing to me, in terms of my personal interests.” For him, doing something hands-on like swim or Yearbook is a nice break from the stress of his AP-heavy schedule.
Although Xu is taking senior-level classes, he has not run out of classes, as Beverly offers hundreds of different courses for students. Next year, he is even looking into doing dual enrollment to take classes at an even more advanced level. Xu is definitely not taking the normal path, and proving that no one at Beverly needs to wait to jump ahead of the curve.
