By Harumi Palomino | she/her | The Noble Academy student
My name is Harumi Palomino, I am currently a 17-year-old senior at The Noble Academy. I am an only child who loves to paint and listen to music. I also enjoy reading mystery novels while I’m taking the train. I’m a first-generation Mexican-American, and I’m ready to go to college! I’m extremely social and enjoy meeting new people and making new connections. I am academically driven—I love to learn anything new, I like to overachieve, and I give anything I do my all. I am also an environmentalist, and I hope to conserve and spread awareness about the environment.
Here’s a little bit more about me and what my experience at TNA has been like:
Being Active & Involved at TNA and Beyond
Harumi working on a lab in science class at The Noble Academy.
My time at TNA has shaped me in many ways. Coming in as a transfer student in my junior year, I knew I would have to work hard to build a new community. I believe I became a more sociable person because of the friendly people at TNA. The welcoming staff here have made building a community easy. Being in clubs also helped me build relationships and offered opportunities to grow in my leadership and social skills. Through those clubs and other activities that I found out about through TNA, I was also able to find passions that I wanted to pursue outside of school—like event planning and being more socially involved.
Right now, I’m on the TNA student council—which has been a fantastic way to work on my leadership and creative skills. I still remember the first event I helped organize through the student council: Spirit Week. During this time, I got to work with my peers on selecting themes for the week. The brainstorming and decision-making processes helped me polish those skills, which are incredibly important to the engineering field where I plan to study and pursue a career.
Outside of school, I also mentor young girls with Girls in the Game. This citywide program has helped me improve my patience and nurturing skills. Patience with others has sometimes been difficult for me, and I wanted to improve on that. With this mentoring experience, I know now that patience is an invaluable skill. Before, I would always expect people to be at my pace. Now, I know that sometimes people may need more time to fully understand how to do something. I also know that, sometimes, people may need extra help with tasks, and you have to be able to help others and collaborate with them.
Another group I joined was the student ambassadors at TNA. I loved it so much that I became an ambassador for Chicago Scholars, a citywide organization that helps prepare juniors for college. Chicago Scholars not only provided many extra opportunities but also gave me extra money for college expenses. Through this program, I got to network with more colleges and do one-on-one interviews with top-performing colleges. I’ve also recently managed to bring representatives from the Chicago Scholars Foundation to TNA, which definitely has been a highlight of my senior year. Without this program, I don’t think that I would be able to go to my dream school because of finances. Now, I’m excited to be going to Washington University in St. Louis in the fall to study environmental engineering. I believe life is all about seeking new exciting opportunities and going after them to see the outcome.
Harumi (first on the right) poses with her friends with Washington University signs.
One Word That Describes Me
One word that describes me is “determined”. The literal meaning of this word is “making firm decisions and being resolved not to change it.” Ask people who know me how they would describe me, and they would probably tell you many iterations of this same word. To me, being “determined” means working unconditionally for what I want. It means showing up as a leader in many aspects of life. It means acknowledging mistakes and being able to most past them and grow from them. These are all things that I take very seriously. I want to be able to accomplish all my dreams, regardless of how big or small they might be. I hope to continue leading, reaching for my goals, and growing. I am determined to make the most of my life, despite the challenges I may encounter.
My Proudest Moment at TNA
My proudest moment at TNA has to be receiving this spotlight. I haven’t reflected on my activities at TNA during the short time I’ve been here, and I’m happy that I can now see how much I have achieved while being here. Through writing this, I see how my actions can and have truly affected the places around me, and now I want to continue doing so. For me, receiving something like this further encourages me to keep trying to do more to improve myself and the communities around me. Recently, it has dawned on me that I have truly built a community at TNA. I am sad to be leaving soon when I graduate. Nevertheless, I am glad that I got to experience this, even if it was just for two short years. I am glad to know that I have impacted the school just as much as being at TNA has impacted me. In the future, I will be proud to say that I am a TNA alum.
Harumi (left) visiting the University of Michigan with her classmate.
