What is life like as a Beaver student? We interviewed several students across all grades—from middle school to senior year—to get a peek into the Beaver student experience. Below you’ll hear from Brooklyn Nieves Farrell ’32—a rising 7th grader. Brooklyn discussed her love for performing arts, an impactful project she completed in her humanities class, and even her favorite snack (spoiler alert: chocolate chips are involved).
Let’s talk about Middle School. You just finished your 6th grade year! What was it like?
My 6th grade year was very fun! We got to know both the new and returning students in classes like music and afternoon activities, and we got chances to choose some fun activities with our friends.
What’s something that surprised you about Beaver?
Something that was surprising was the number of group projects; they really helped us get to know each other and develop our collaboration skills. Although we did lots of solo projects too, I learned that working with a team is a great way to get to know each other’s skills and talents.
What was your favorite class?
My favorite class was Theater Arts, where we both learned skills for acting and public speaking, while playing fun games to exercise the skills we learned. In this class, I worked on my storytelling skills, when we had to write a scene to convey a story, without talking.
What’s a project you worked on that you really liked and why?
A fun project I worked on was the Hinduism project in Humanities. We read the graphic novel Pashmina in class that explored Indian culture, and we were put in pairs based on our topic interests. I really enjoyed this project because we got to do a deep dive into a subtopic we were interested in and then create a presentation that taught the class something we were experts on.
Making friends at Beaver was really easy once I put myself out there. I was nervous on the orientation/music matching day, but once I started talking to the kid sitting next to me, it wasn’t so bad,
Brooklyn Nieves Farrell '32
Tell me about a teacher you really enjoyed. How did they help you grow as a student?
A teacher that I really liked was Ms. Yang, my Chinese teacher. She made sure to repeat herself so everyone could translate what she was saying, and she always made sure we had a chance to practice writing, recognizing, and pronouncing characters. She helped us grow by understanding that learning a new language was hard and always pushing us to keep on trying.
What are you most excited about in the upcoming year?
I am most excited to meet all the new kids who are going to join my grade! Our grade is going to at least double in size, so I am excited to make new friends!
Time for some rapid fire questions!
Favorite class: Theater Arts
Favorite spot on campus: Ms. Smith/my advisors office
Favorite afternoon activity: The middle school play and musical
Favorite Middle School event: Dam Day
Favorite snack: Warm chocolate chip muffins (for special snack on Thursdays)
Favorite lunch: Breakfast for lunch
Favorite recess activity: Rise