Senior Solomon Galpern has been key in many extracurricular activities at the school. Galpern is a part of three clubs at the school which he is president of.
“I am president of the Chess Club,” Galpern said. “I’m president of the Trivia Club, which is called ‘It’s Academic.’ Then, I’m president of the Latin Club; we are also known as the Classics Club.”
Galpern has been involved in each club for varying amounts of time. He joined It’s Academic during his freshman year.
“I joined the Trivia Club in freshman year [when] I was in Ms. Sotomayor’s [biology] class,” Galpern said. “She’s one of the sponsors of it and I just kind of got into it, and it’s really fun.”
It’s Academic meets every week to practice trivia questions, and then goes to competitions around the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia area.
“A lot of times we’ll play against other schools in our district,” Galpern said. “This year, we had a big win in Regionals … we got second place in the whole region, so that was really cool. I’ve been president only for this year, but I feel like I’ve had a really good time with it and I’ve really enjoyed it.”
While he has only been president of It’s Academic for one year, he has held leadership positions in the Latin Club for the past two years. He is the only president of the club this year and was co-president of the club last year with Mickey Robinson.
“I kind of helped run our various activities and events [as president both years],” Galpern said.
Galpern has been involved with Latin and classics related activities since middle school. He even connects his passion for trivia with his passion for Latin.
“We do something called Disco Certamen, which is like a Latin quiz bowl,” Galpern said. “You can see the overlaps of trivia there, but we have all the middle schoolers come and play trivia, and Latin related trivia. [It is] an event we put on and it’s really fun.”
Galpern’s involvement in the Chess Club began in his sophomore year.
“I joined it because a bunch of my friends were doing it, and I also got really into chess during COVID, and I had a really good time playing chess with my friends,” Galpern said.
Galpern has good relationships with the sponsors of his clubs and has learned new skills through the experience.
“Ms. Kelley is the sponsor of the Latin Club, and we get along quite well,” Galpern said. “Ms. Sotomayor and Ms. Scher are the sponsors of the It’s Academic Club. I’ve known all of the teachers since freshman year, so … we get along. … I feel like I’m good at communicating with the teachers and they’re good at communicating with me, … like we can email back and forth, and know when to put a meeting and know when to not schedule something because there isn’t availability and stuff like that.”
Along with being president of three clubs, Galpern is also a full International Baccalaureate (IB) student. He chose to be an IB candidate to challenge himself.
“I always want to do the hardest thing,” Galpern said. “That’s not always the smartest thing to do, but it’s just kind of how I’m built. … I knew that I’d feel bad about myself if I didn’t do it. So I was like, ‘Okay, I might as well try it.’ It’s been insanely hard, but I’m basically almost done now, and I guess I’m kind of happy I did it.”
Despite IB, Galpern has enjoyed his experience at the school.
“I’ve [had] a generally positive experience [at the school],” Galpern said. “I think everyone’s really nice. I generally get along with almost everyone I interact with. Teachers are amazing here. I’ve had really, really good experiences in almost all of my classes… It’s definitely been hard with IB because that’s really challenging and so I haven’t always enjoyed that the most, but I really do think that I’ve been happy with my experience at [Washington-Liberty].”
Often, people write their Extended Essay (EE) for IB on something they are interested in or passionate about and then expand upon and explore it in an essay about that topic. Galpern did the same.
“I did my EE on the Crimean War because … I like this Tennyson poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade that took place during the Crimean War,” Galpern. “I ended up being able to explore some of the stuff with the battle that the Charge of Light Brigade took place at and also a lot of the trends in the war itself as well.”
This year, Galpern has great memories of some achievements or fun activities that he participated in, like getting into the University of Virginia (UVA).
“Getting into college was great, because I applied early decision, I got [it] done in December and that was the greatest feeling,” Galpern said. “Being done with the EE and then being done with CAS are great feelings [because] I really [got] to get these IB requirements out of the way that I’ve had to struggle and deal with for the last year… I [also] had a really fun kind of Pi Day related party with some friends like a month ago that was awesome.”
Galpern has also had many other happy experiences at the school.
“[One of my favorite memories was] getting an ‘A’ on my sophomore year math final [which] was an amazing feeling because that math class was probably the hardest class I had to take in high school,” Galpern said. “Getting an ‘A’ [on the final] meant that I got an ‘A’ in the class [which] was great.”
Galpern has also experienced amazing non-academic related activities like winning a recreational basketball championship.
“[My team won] the [recreational] basketball championship in 11th grade for Division II,” Galpern said. “We won the entire league for rec basketball. That was amazing and … I’ve been on that team since third grade and played with most of the same people. It was a really great experience.”
Galpern was also really excited for prom and graduation.
“Graduations can be awesome,” Galpern said. “I’m excited for my parents and grandparents to be there and see me graduate. I think that’s gonna make them very happy. It’s gonna make me very happy.”
Along with graduation, seniors complete a senior experience every year during the last few weeks of school. Galpern will be making a food blog.
“I’m really excited to go to London for a week and [do] a food blog,” Galpern said. “I really like eating food. I don’t want to call it a hobby, but I think that I’ll have fun doing food reviews.”
After the high school year ends, Galpern looks forward to his summer plans.
“I’m excited for my job this summer,” Galpern said. “I’m going to be a camp counselor [at Rodef Shalom] like I usually am, which I find to be immensely satisfying. It makes me very happy. It’s a good job to do.”
Galpern is also pumped to go to UVA in the fall.
“I’m really excited for college,” Galpern said. “I’m just excited to have a lot more freedom in what I can study and just to be able to explore and take the classes that I want to take and that’s really emphasized at UVA.”
Despite knowing where he is going to college, he does not know what he wants to major in yet.
“I’ve been telling people [that I want to study] a mix of chemistry, economics and history,” Galpern said. “I just love history, but I’m not sure how much I want to study [it] in college. I definitely want to take history classes, so that’s why I’m thinking about having it as a major but I’m not sure.”
Along with history, Galpern has other interests he might want to explore during college.
“I’ve been in chemistry for three years in high school [and] I really enjoy it,” Galpern said. “I could definitely see myself majoring in [chemistry] or economics, which I only took for a year in high school, but I found it to be a really interesting class, and I like reading articles about economics and stuff like that. I find that to be very interesting, so [I want to major in] any mix of those things.”
Galpern is also unsure of his future, but he predicts he will be at college for four years.
“My future plans [are going to college] for four years to get a degree in whatever I want to get a degree [in],” Galpern said. “I’m pretty sure I’m gonna go to some kind of graduate school, whether it be law school or a master’s program for whatever I’m studying.”
Galpern believes in getting experience after university before getting any education higher than a postgraduate degree, such as a PhD.
“Pretty much no matter what I’m gonna do after I get my first postgraduate degree, I’m going to try and go into the workforce, get some life experience, stuff like that before maybe coming back and getting more education or maybe just settling into a career,” Galpern said.
Galpern also needs to figure out what he wants to do career-wise.
“I’m kind of unsure [on what I want to be in the future],” Galpern said. “I could see myself becoming a lawyer, but lawyers kind of suck. I could also see myself doing a job where I kind of give back so I could be a teacher or something like that. I definitely want to do something where I can use what I’ve learned in college and other things and really apply it to my job in an interesting way. I don’t think I want to be an academic, but that would kind of be an interesting route to maybe being a professor, … but I also think it’ll be kind of fun to be a lawyer. I like debating with people ,so that can also work.”
Galpern has other priorities and things he thinks are more important than knowing exactly what he will do or go into.
“[One of my goals is to] be happy,” Galpern said. “I would love to be happy; being happy is the best goal ever. … I definitely want to find happiness in my education and in my profession. That’s kind of how I want to do things, so I only want to have jobs that I’m interested in or that make me happy, same with studying.”
Galpern recommends that underclassmen and other students at the school generally do what makes them happy.
“I would say this is my free life advice as someone who has not lived long enough to actually be legitimately giving life advice: just do things that you’re interested in and that make you happy,” Galpern said. “If you do those things, you will be a happy person, and you will enjoy your life. That’s kind of what I try and hold myself to.”
