Missouri Top 100 Scholars talk past, future

Joseph Harned
Feature/Entertainment Editor

Photo by Joseph Harned

Seniors Ian McCann and Eric Miranda are two of the brightest students in the state. The two Top 100 Missouri Scholar Award winners discussed their high school experiences and their goals for the future.

Regarding the most rewarding aspect of high school, Miranda and McCann agreed. Miranda replied, “Forming relationships with the students and teachers. One of the biggest strengths of Webster is that they have a lot of really good teachers.”

McCann followed, saying, “I totally agree… having been in Webster since kindergarten, you really get to know everyone in the school so well. That’s something I’m really going to miss.”

Miranda said Camp Wyman was his favorite extracurricular activity he did while at Webster, with McCann nodding in agreement.

McCann said, If he could go back in time, he would “take some of the fun electives, like baking and stuff like that. I put a lot of pressure on myself to take the hardest classes, the most AP classes and stuff, and I feel like I missed out on some of the fun classes.

About if their career plans have differed since freshman year, Miranda and McCann both laughed about their 15-year-old selves.

“I wanted to be a zookeeper when I was a little kid, so I probably would have said majoring in biology. When I took physics especially, that’s when I sort of fell in love with that,” Miranda replied.

McCann agreed his passions had changed. “Yeah, yeah. Growing up, I always was like “Oh I’m gonna be a doctor” so I was probably going to major in biology or something, but I’ve learned so many different subjects in high school that there’s other stuff I want to explore.

Miranda and McCann had similar outlooks for the college experience.

McCann said, “I’m not looking forward to the extra hours of homework, but I do think it will definitely be very educational as to how to manage time, because that’s not really a problem with the workload that a lot of our classes have.”

Miranda agreed, “Yeah, and I think that’s also especially, not just because of the college part itself, but living on your own, basically you have to be a lot more independent. That will definitely be different.”

Miranda and McCann have high expectations for the careers they plan to enter. The two seniors, however, agreed that the personal connections they plan to make may be more impactful than broad achievements.

McCann said, “I don’t see myself doing any super big, attention grabbing stuff. Just making smaller impacts on the people around you is kind of the purpose of what I want to do. I’m debating that [politics or law]. I would love to do some lower level governmental work, because I feel like at more local levels you can really see the impact of that work.”

Miranda replied, “A dream job is to work at NASA, or work in the space industry in some aspect, being part of a group that is making crazy stuff happen. At the same time, impacting those around you, even if it’s small in the scope of the universe, is really important.”