Annalise “Ann” Morgan, a Sahuaro senior, was recently accepted to Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, AZ to study aerospace engineering. That alone is awesome, but what is even more exciting is that she received $96,000 in scholarships – the Chancellor’s Scholarship and Women’s of Excellence. Ann said she, “…just applied and put the activities that I did and clubs that I did and obviously my GPA and all the grades that I got.”
In her years as a Cougar, Ann has achieved a 3.8 weighted and 4.6 unweighted GPA, leaving behind a legacy by making captain of varsity tennis and golf, becoming president of Concert Choir and vice president of Asian Student Association, and is an active member of Book Club. To handle all of this and her AP coursework, she said it’s not too bad since, “not everything is on the same day, and if anything, everyone is really flexible with me leaving early or coming late. As long as I’m there, they’re okay because they know I have other things to do.”
Ann got into golf and tennis because her friends asked her to join. Although she enjoys all her activities, her favorite would be, “Tennis, definitely tennis. Choir would be second, but tennis definitely first.” Choir was a class she was just placed in, and even though it’s her second favorite now, she initially HATED it. Now, she’s president. Ann decided she wanted to stay in it because she, “…really liked Ms. Barnes, so I stuck with it because I wanted to keep her as a teacher.”
Ann has learned that in order to keep up with such a demanding scholastic and athletic schedule, the most important thing is, “Taking care of yourself, like eating well, staying hydrated, seeing the athletic trainer if you’re hurt, just like staying in shape…” Ann’s mindset for keeping up with her schoolwork is, “…I keep good grades obviously because I want them, but also to stay eligible to play and I’ve also just always wanted good grades so…if I get it done I’ll feel good about myself and I got it done and I did it well.” She reminds herself that the good grades she gets will pay off for college and her GPA.
Ann took 4 AP classes during her sophomore and junior years, and this year she is taking two. She took AP World History in her sophomore year, AP Chemistry, AP Language, and AP U.S. History in her junior year, and AP Government and AP Literature to finish off strong. Even though it is challenging, Ann said that it is not that bad because “of how good the teachers teach and how good they are as recourses so I’m not struggling.”
Now, it’s time for the super cool stuff (at least in my opinion). Around five years ago, Ann took a family trip to the NASA Station in Houston, Texas. There, they took a tour and got to see the aerospace engineers working on robots to send to Mars. She said, “We haven’t figured out how to get people there yet…I thought it was so cool.” When she saw them working, her instant reaction was, “Oh my gosh this is so cool, I want to do that.” That was all it took for Ann, and now she hopes to work at NASA in the future.
Ann’s life motto is much like the mindset of an engineer: “Trial and error, like over and over…keep trying because you can’t figure out what to do unless you fail and try again.” One subject Ann and I talked a bit about was the possibility of living on Mars. Although she doesn’t know much about what they would be like or the conditions of Mars, she is “going to learn…I’m going to try to put things on Mars, but people living on there – that would be kind of a lot because there’s like nothing there so we would have to bring stuff there and then that’s like a whole new process of what can we bring?”
An Embry-Riddle alum is Ann’s role model – her dad. After graduating, he worked on aircraft in the military and Ann says, “…seeing him do college and be in the military I was like, ‘Oh, if he can do all that, I can do that too,’ and he did sports and had a job and good grades in high school, so I’m like ‘I can be just like him…'”
In life, it’s important to find people we look up to and find encouragement in. In my humble opinion, Ann is 100% one of those people.
