Senior Rita Carmona is excited to have a good start to her senior year with her friends and her impassioned involvement in extracurricular activities. Her friendliness, charisma, and caring personality comes with a lot of experience to change and an open-heart to others.

“Rita has never failed to make me feel better when something was getting me down. It’s in her best interest to put other people’s happiness before her own. Just recently, she talked me out of my anxiety as the stress of school and college applications started accumulating,” said senior and good friend of Carmona Emily Stangel.

Although junior year was a tough year for many, Rita believes that there’s more work that comes with being a senior.

“Senior year is really fun so far, but it’s a lot of work in my classes in addition to the college apps. Overall it’s a bit more stressful than I thought,” Carmona said.

That being said, she is still able to balance her academics with her extracurricular activities.

“I’m the section leader for Marching Band, an executive for Dance Marathon, I’m on the Speech team, a member of tribe called west and will be joining a new club called SOAR.”

There was a time in Rita’s life where she wasn’t given the great opportunities to be involved in activities. She moved to Costa Rica her freshman year, where she was challenged with meeting new people, adapting to a new language, and not having many activities available to her.

“I didn’t like the year I lived in Costa Rica at first. I didn’t know anyone, and it was as if I was on the opposite side of the spectrum. It was a new school so they didn’t have any after school activities. They also used trimesters so we’d have a month off in December and go to school all year round. Moving to Costa Rica was a time when I was able to find myself and learn my native language. I took advantage of that time to understand who I was and where my family came from.”

This year, Rita is enjoying her sociology and AP psychology classes, because they are similar to her future major she hopes to accomplish and she enjoys learning about the brain and how people think and act. With a bright future in store, Rita gave us an idea on what she hopes to accomplish,

“I hope I find something passionate to study one day, and I really hope to travel a lot as well. College is definitely a goal and I’m happy with the choices I made so whatever one I end up going to I’ll be content.”

 If you haven’t noticed it already, Rita is a people’s person and since Niles West is so diverse it has given her the chance to meet all sorts of unique people that Costa Rica was able to reveal to her as well. Rita’s character has a lot to do with her biggest role model.

“My mom has been there for me always. She’s caring and been through a lot but still is selfless. She is definitely my role model and shows me the kind of person I want to be one day.”

Although it’s Rita’s last year at Niles West to share her love and kindness, she has tons of aspirations to end her academic career here.

“I don’t want to have regrets when leaving Niles West. I tried out for homecoming court and like Dr. Ness said, try something you never done before. Go out with a BANG!”