Emmaline Conover, Katherine Evans, and Christian Nøkkentved

Emma Conover and Katie Evans are both members of the class of 2009. Conover knew about IMSA because her grandmother lived a couple blocks away and she would drive by with her parents. She grew up in a small rural town where she wasn\u27t challenged in class, so she decided she wanted to attend IMSA. Evans grew up in Springfield where she also exceeded the capacity of her school to challenge her and she felt she didn\u27t fit in there. In terms of first impressions, Evans says she was decidedly unimpressed with the architecture. She also remembers being nervous at first because of the different academic and social environment. Conover first came to IMSA as part of the Excel program and likewise was nervous about the academic side of the experience. Conover and Evans met sophomore year because they lived in the same wing. Conover said she started out wanting to study biology, but she had a much harder time with science classes once she got to the advanced classes. Evans came to IMSA without much interest in math or science; she thought she wanted to be a writer. When choosing a language sophomore year, German was her third choice and that\u27s what she got put into, which she was angry about at the time. However, she ended up enjoying it and majored in German cultural studies in college. Conover likewise got put into her third choice language class, Japanese, and also ended up being happy about it, and she also took French later. She also says another class that made a big impression on her was a section on world religions in Dr. Nok\u27s class. She went on to major in French and East Asian studies. Conover and Evans, together with another student, did an inquiry project on languages. In terms of extracurriculars, Conover joined the swim team. Evans says sophomore year she was worried that doing extracurricular activities would interfere with her studies. Later she ended up participating in drama club as a house manager and she did some writing for the Acronym. Conover also worked with drama club as a stage manager. Evans participated in an exchange trip to Korea during her second semester senior year. She recalls being struck by the Koreans\u27 excellent language skills, and how relatively speaking Americans put much less effort into learning languages. She ended up studying Korean in college. They conclude the discussion talking about fun activities they participated in, particularly the Diwali show and celebrations. Both comment on how, by comparison, the colleges they went to had a lack of diversity or understanding of different cultural traditions. Duration: 18:33https://digitalcommons.imsa.edu/oral_histories/1011/thumbnail.jp