Beacon top 2 students heading to Worcester Polytechnic Institute
WOONSOCKET – After seven years at art school, Beacon Charter High School’s top two students will be diving into science and technology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the fall.
Ezra Cisse, the valedictorian, will study aerospace engineering with aspirations to work on rockets, and Alexander Reynolds, the salutatorian, will study biology and biotechnology.
“I’ve always loved space,” Cisse said. “I’m looking forward to starting a new career, a new milestone.”
Cisse, a Woonsocket resident who started at Founders Academy, the affiliate charter middle school, in sixth grade, concentrated in theater arts at Beacon. He said this year’s Arts Night will stand out as a fond memory for him because everyone “gave 110%” with their projects.
“He’s got so much potential,” his mother, Donna.
Though he hasn’t started on his graduation speech yet, Cisse said his advice for those following behind him is to participate in extracurriculars and community service at Beacon.
“You get to know all of the freshmen, the underclassmen, if you show up,” he said.
Reynolds, also from Woonsocket, said his interest in biology goes back to childhood when he would go hunting for bugs in the park with his dad and help his mom and grandmother garden. Around the time he started at Founders, he also started raising praying mantises as pets.
“Ever since he was three, four years old he was interested in nature,” Reynold’s father, Michael, said. “It was a shared interest, something he took and went with it,”
Reynolds concentrated in visual arts, and said he’s proud of his artwork, though he’s been pursuing a dual enrollment at Community College of Rhode Island in his last year at Beacon, which will culminate in a 10-page research paper on the benefit of insects in society.
“The best piece of advice – and I could still use this advice – is to not procrastinate,” he said.
His parents said he’s become more outgoing and in his last few years at Beacon and CCRI, and they’re looking forward to seeing that growth continue.
“It’s watching him grow and accomplish all of his dreams,” his mother, Ashley, said. “The world’s his.”