Meet Northwest Alum ‘13 Nathan: “Hi, my name is Nathan and I graduated from NWS in 2013. I majored in English Literature at UPenn. I am currently finishing up my last year of law school at Stanford. After graduation, I will move to DC where I plan to specialize in antitrust and competition law. Many of the skills and commitments that drew me to law—interpreting complex language, writing persuasively, effecting positive social change—were ones I learned to exercise at Northwest.
My teachers at Northwest passed on to me a love of learning that knows almost no disciplinary bounds. While literature and the arts have always been central passions of mine, I was just as enthralled at Northwest by my classes in biology and advanced calculus. This eagerness to traverse different fields of knowledge has served me well in school and in my professional life.
Theatre was also a major highlight, and I have many wonderful memories from my time in Laura Ferri and Ellen Graham’s play production class. In addition to all the shows I performed in, I directed three one-act plays before graduating, taking charge of the rehearsal process while collaborating with a team of actors and designers. It was a remarkable opportunity for me and testifies to the enormous respect that teachers at Northwest afford their students as young artists.
The humanities program was a major highlight of my Northwest experience. I relished its bracing synthesis of historical, literary, and philosophical inquiry, and it prepared me very well for all my subsequent academic endeavors. The program’s interdisciplinary angle, and the faculty’s thoughtful, individualized writing instruction, proved enormously valuable in upper-level college classes. I have especially vivid memories from the ninth grade year, where we covered prehistory through the Renaissance. While responding critically and creatively to texts like Beowulf and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, I discovered that writing about early literature could be a thrilling way to explore our present moment’s most pressing questions. I trace a direct line from those experiences to my years in college as a passionate English major.” #nwsalumnistories