Emily Grussing, a proctor in Mem West and co-captain of both swimming and water polo, boasts accomplishments within the Williston community and beyond. She is a co-founder of the club LiNK, or Liberty in North Korea, which promotes awareness about human rights violations and the overall situation in North Korea, and is a co-president of the Community Service club. Over the summer, Emily worked in a computational genetics laboratory at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, and a research paper she helped write was published in a scientific journal.

Emily is a leader even beyond Williston’s green gates, and there is no doubt she will continue to find leadership roles when she attends Tufts University next year.

Q: What is your best memory from your time at Williston?

A: My freshman year. I loved living with all the freshman girls. We were all on one floor, except for Kenzie [Possee ‘15], which was sad, but we still included her in stuff. It was just really, really nice to feel that connected to my class, and we just had great proctors and great dorm parent. And I think its nice, freshman year, definitely having less homework and less [sic] responsibilities. I wasn’t as involved. I really liked having that one year to acclimate myself to Williston and build really strong relationships, that to this day, all of them [freshman year friends], I’m still very connected with, even my freshman year roommate. It was just really nice to feel that connected to my friends, and we still talk about all the jokes and shenanigans we had then. That was awesome.

Q: What accomplishment are you most proud of?

A: I think getting Cum Laude was really cool. That was just a nice culmination of all my efforts in the classroom, coming together.

Q: What activities have you most enjoyed at Williston?

A: I really loved starting and running my own club, LiNK. That was really cool because being in other clubs, and even leading them, like with Community Service club, a lot of the time we find ourselves going back and thinking, “Okay, what worked? What did people do last year? What has this club done in the past?” I thought [starting a new club] was really cool. It gave me the chance to be creative and innovative when we had to decide, “Okay, what is it that we want to do? What is our mission? What do we hope to accomplish? How are we going to do it? What’s going to work? What’s going to not [work]?” A lot of the time it involved a lot of trial and error and definitely some failure, but it’s been really cool to see LiNK grow, and [to see] what we can do, and [to] get more ideas. It definitely feels like more of an accomplishment because we’ve done it all ourselves.

Q: What would you recommend younger students try at Williston?

A: I would definitely encourage them to sign up for as many clubs as they can at the beginning of the year, and then actually go to as many meetings as they can, and then narrow it down [to] what they actually want to be involved in. I know, as a freshman, I was really hesitant to get overinvolved and just be spread to thin, so I didn’t join any clubs. The clubs that I did join I joined halfway through the year, so I never really felt like a whole member, because I had to get added to the email list halfway through or just start attending club meetings sporadically. I’d recommend to not be afraid to join as many clubs as they can; and to also join things that they may not be interested in at all, because that’s rewarding, to find something new you’re interested in; and to volunteer; and to be as big of a part of a club as you can as well, because the current club leaders know who’s interested and then they can recommend and pass that on. It’s really not that hard to become a president of a club at Williston. A lot of the time, it’s not a formal voting process or anything like that. If you show interest, you can gain a leadership position. I think being in leadership positions at Williston is really priceless. I think the best thing to do is get involved, offer a helping hand as much as you can, and I think that would lead someone to rise in the ranks [of a particular club].

Q: What will you miss most about Williston? 

A: The community. Especially when I was at the winter carnival [Willy Wonderland on the pond], just looking around, I know that a lot of the time, people will think, “Oh, there’s different sections that we sit in in the dining hall, there’s different sports teams, there’s different classes that people take, this kid might be more into the arts…” But when I was out on the pond looking around at so many students, and everyone just having fun, walking around together, people weren’t afraid.

If you crashed into someone you might not really know, it wasn’t that bad. We all do go to Williston. So I think it’s really nice, moments like that, when you see the different [divisions] fall down, and you realize they aren’t as present as you may think. I love that we have such a small and close-knit community and that people really know each other and respect each other here.

Q: What are you most looking forward to after you graduate?

A: I’m really looking forward to studying [and] getting a more narrow view on the things I’m really interested in. I plan on doing lots of research in college, scientific research. I think that’s going to be really fun. I’ve loved taking science at Williston, but it feels like it’s kind of a large, umbrella view of “this is what science is.” I’m really excited to dive deeper into specific things and learn more. So narrowing my perspective in college and studying more the details of things I’ve been introduced to at Williston.

Q: Where do you see yourself in five years?

A: I see myself at Med School. I’m not sure where yet. I think that in Med School I would want to go to a big city and see how I could adjust, small-town kid from New Hampshire and everything. But we’ll see.