Annual Report 2017-2018

OUR BRIGHT FUTURE pride “Everyone was so supportive, and I realized this is a place that sets you up for success.” — PAMELA GOMEZ ’18, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Ask Pamela Gomez ’18 what she’ll miss most about Wildwood and the answer is instant. “The energy,” she says without hesitation. “As soon as you walk into the school, people greet you with a positive attitude and a smile. There’s something about the optimism in the air—it makes you feel like you can do anything.” For Pamela, that energy was infectious. She arrived in 9th grade, having transferred from a local public school and feeling woefully underprepared. “I came in not knowing what teachers expected and not used to doing the same amount of work as the students who had been here since middle school,” she recalls. “But everyone was so supportive, and I realized this is a place that sets you up for success. The tools are there for you; you just have to put in the effort, and there’s no telling where you’ll go.” In Pamela’s case, the answer was “far.” She played four years of volleyball (one as captain of the junior varsity squad), was on the school’s soccer team, sang and danced her way through musicals like Grease and The Sound of Music and jammed as a violin-playing member of the Senior Institute jazz band, interned at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, attended three International Community Involvement trips to Guatemala and Belize, all while thriving academically. Throw in her year spent on the swim team, and it becomes clear this was one Wolf making serious waves.

Looking back over her high-school years, Pamela points to her musical development as an example of Wildwood’s transforming influence. “When I first got here, I thought music was something you read off a chart,” she says. “But then I learned how to compose and how to really listen, which helped me flourish as a musician and get comfortable with letting go. It changed me completely.” Pamela says she was also influenced by the school’s wide-ranging diversity. “I encountered so much of it—not just ethnic diversity but also diversity of thought and interests,” she says. “In any given class, every one of us had different things to contribute based on our backgrounds, passions, and life experiences. And there were no boundaries: You could be a theater person and be on the varsity volleyball team.” As she begins her freshman year at Wesleyan, Pamela is grateful for her time at Wildwood. “When I think about that middle school girl now, I’m amazed,” she says. “I wasn’t confident in expressing my ideas. But Wildwood prepared me to face the world.” And although her high-school days are behind her, the skills Pamela built will follow her into the future. “I’ve learned to speak my mind and make my own choices,” she says. “In that way, Wildwood is always going to be a part of me.”

40 | REPORT ON GENEROSITY 2017-2018