Author: Diane Toroian Keaggy

The Record has followed five first-year students who happened to sit near each other at a preseason game during Bear Beginnings orientation in August. Here, we check in with them as they wrap up the year.

Washington University in St. Louis has admitted 50 rising high school sophomores to its innovative College Prep Program, a multiyear initiative that prepares high-achieving students with limited financial resources for college.

Commencement student speakers Bryanna Brown, of Atlanta, and Noor Ghanam, who has lived in cities across the globe, took different journeys to Washington University in St. Louis, but on Friday, May 20, both will converge on the stage at Francis Olympic Field to address their fellow members of the Class of 2022.

Otto Brown, a rising senior studying economics and political science in Arts & Sciences, has been recognized by the All In Campus Democracy Challenge as a member of its All In Student Voting Honor Roll.

Abram Saroufim wants to help develop culturally appropriate interventions to support mental health in immigrant communities in the United States and, later, in different nations around the world. 

Sculptor Bo Schmit scavenges thrift stores and metal suppliers for domestic detritus, building blocks of his intimate objects and large-scale installations. The result is sometimes whimsical, sometimes disturbing, but somehow familiar. Schmit is set to graduate with a degree in studio art from the Sam Fox School.

School of Medicine employee Juaun Bean will earn two degrees from University College on May 20, the day before his 30th birthday. As father to two young children, he has typed papers with one hand while feeding a baby with the other and spent countless hours studying with a tiny body affixed to his chest.

McKelvey School of Engineering senior Elizabeth Saliba is committed to designing a more sustainable future. During her time at Washington University, she has helped design modular classroom prototypes for an elementary school south of St. Louis and a net-zero energy occupational therapy clinic to be built on Delmar Boulevard.

At the end of high school, twins Akhil and Rohith Kesaraju were ready to go their own ways. Then they visited Washington University, and everything changed. Now, preparing to graduate, the Kesaraju twins have grown both apart and together on parallel paths of service and research.

What are Washington University in St. Louis students doing during reading week? Junior Amanda Sherman hits the Danforth Campus to find out. Along the way she meets students who have scored big summer internships, performed in campus shows and survived organic chemistry.