Meet the alumni of awakening seed school

Caitlin Tierney

My name is Caitlin Tierney. I’m 26 years old. I live in Menlo Park, CA and I’m a PhD student at UC Davis, where I study linguistics. My research is on pragmatics (a subfield of semantics) and how people learn to use and understand non-literal speech (e.g., saying, “it’s a little breezy” to get someone to close a window), as well as how people build communities of practice.

I went to Arizona School for the Arts for high school, then I went to University of Washington in Seattle, where I graduated in 2011 with a B.A. in Linguistics and Scandinavian Area Studies.

What matters to me is my family, my friends, and my research. What makes me happy is spending time with my family and closest friends (some of whom I met at the Seed) and learning new things. I think the Seed helped me understand that everything is connected. I think that applies to academic subjects as well as the different domains in my life. My friends help me get through professional challenges, and my work helps me find new friends. I get to work with languages, people, computers, and math, and the Seed helped me have confidence that I can be good at all those things and not just be a math person or a language person.

Chelsea Carasusan

Age: 20 | Location: Worcester, MA
I am currently working on a aerospace engineering degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I graduated in the top 1% in high school and am currently on an amazing scholarship to go to the pre-named university. I could not have done this without the Seed. They instilled in me a love of learning that I don’t find in most places. This love has gotten me far and made school less of a chore and more of an experience. I can never thank the school enough for what they have done for me.

Chelsea Wright

Age: 27 | Location:  Eugene, OR

Since my time at the Seed, I have earned a high school diploma from Arizona School for the Arts, a BA with concentrations in music and literature from Sarah Lawrence College, and a Master of Music degree in Music Theory from the University of Colorado-Boulder. I am currently pursuing a PhD in Music Theory, with a supporting area in Harpsichord Performance, at the University of Oregon. I am also a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the university, teaching students and assisting faculty with courses in the first and second years of the music theory curriculum.

The Seed taught me to love learning! My time there also taught me the importance of finding and creating communities that foster dialogue and discovery, and that learning is, by its very nature, a collaborative enterprise. I will never forget the hours we spent in the garden, each student contributing to and caring for the community we built together. I hold those memories close as my students and I build our own communities together, term by term.

Collin Schairer