One year from now, Rowan MacIntyre will be sitting on the stairs to her dorm room while a little robot wheels up to her to drop off her Chick-fil-A meal. She will fumble her computer in order to tip the little white robot with neon eyes, her computer screen blaring a picture of a Wobbegong shark.

Since she was about 10 years old, MacIntyre has loved everything to do with the ocean. She was on the beach in Oregon, visiting her grandma, when she came across a baby great white shark that had been washed up on shore. As she ran her hand over the dermal denticles on the shark’s skin a new passion lit up inside her. For the next several years, she would buy all things shark. Magazines, books, pictures, you name it.

As the English sterling scholar, her passion seems a little surprising, but MacIntyre chases, or swims, after it anyway.

“It’s really interesting to see how 400 plus billion years of evolution have created this one animal,” MacIntyre said. “It’s almost like you’re playing a video game and are thinking ‘I wonder what the best I can get my character to is’.”

Of course, in college she will be studying the 75% of the planet that is covered by water, but her passions in writing have influenced her time through high school and will continue to serve her well in the future. Her writing in turn has been influenced by one of her other great passions, other than sharks.

“She has read probably I would have to estimate hundreds of books,” MacIntyre’s mother Kirsten MacIntyre said. “I could always tell when she learned the new word out of a book because she always mispronounced it and I’d ask, ‘where did you learn that word’ ‘Oh, this book that I read”, so I think her writing is so rich because of that passion for reading.”

It sure seems like her reading content will mostly consist of books about the ocean, lemon sharks, or manta rays.

While MacIntyre spends most of her time daydreaming of the great, big, blue ocean she spends much of her time hanging out with her friends, hitting the rock-climbing wall, or trying something new. Her mother explains that she has always been excited and open to new adventures and will for sure continue to have amazing experiences in her college life.

On top of having plans to move to Oregon, MacIntyre has traveled all over the world, including having had lived in India for a part of her life. Her joy, passion, and care for the world has been heavily influenced by her love for adventure. Most importantly, as her father Robert MacIntyre shares, she makes delicious pie.

MacIntyre’s dedication to her academic life has allowed her to win several awards on the state level for Journalism on top of successfully partaking in the Highland International Baccalaureate Program.

“To the outside world it seems like she just picks a subject and writes about it, but I think she has fun writing and I see her enjoying it,” MacIntyre’s mom said.

MacIntyre sure does bring joy to everything that she does. In one year, as she sits on the steps and chows down on her spicy chicken sandwich, she can look backwards and forwards with confidence, especially as she takes actions to study and save our oceans and environment.