{"id":8431,"date":"2017-10-16T17:23:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T22:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/?p=8431"},"modified":"2021-02-03T08:48:43","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T14:48:43","slug":"meet-junior-ling-debellis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/2017\/10\/16\/meet-junior-ling-debellis\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Ling DeBellis &#8217;19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive alignright wp-image-8432 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/nclhx5yj.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/LingWP-400x267.jpg\" alt=\"Featured student in room alone\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/>What do you love about MPA?<\/strong><br \/>\nFrom the beginning, MPA focuses on every part of learning\u2014curiosity, creativity, and discovery. In Lower School, it&#8217;s letting you grow, giving you a solid foundation of asking questions, and experiencing new things. In Middle School, it&#8217;s learning how and why things work. There&#8217;s emphasis on independence and self-expression. In Upper School, it&#8217;s connecting the dots, learning to find deeper meaning and themes within all subjects. MPA has made me a thinker and a better human.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How are you encouraged to dream big and do right at MPA?<\/strong><br \/>\nI know it&#8217;s okay to be me. I know that I can do what I set my mind to. I&#8217;m unstoppable because MPA has taught me to question, to think, and to care in every aspect of my life\u2014academic and social.<\/p>\n<p><strong>If you have attended another school, how has your experience at MPA been different?<\/strong><br \/>\nMPA is my home. I started in PreK in 2005 (first PreK class).<\/p>\n<p><strong>What would you tell a family considering MPA?<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s a great place for your kids to grow up\u2014it feels safe. We are a community. And the classes are amazing with even more amazing teachers.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>In what ways has MPA prepared you for life?<\/strong><br \/>\nI was really shy and quiet when I started PreK. If I hadn&#8217;t have been at MPA all these years, I think I&#8217;d be the self-conscious, B student, at the back of the classroom who doesn&#8217;t know how to think independently or feel fearless in this big world of ours. However, because of MPA, I am still curious at 17. I love school. I can ask questions in class. I can talk to my teachers when I need help. I have smart and funny friends. I know I&#8217;ll do great things\u2014this is the kind of philosophy MPA gives its students.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you dream for yourself in 20 years? <\/strong><br \/>\nI&#8217;m a science kid and always have been! MPA nurtured that curiosity from the start. I want to attend college or university (maybe Emory in Atlanta, or the Claremont Colleges in southern California) and then embark on a dual M.D.\/Ph.D. I&#8217;d like to be a medical researcher at the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Or, maybe work in a pharmaceutical company. I want to work with other discovery-driven people.<\/p>\n<p><em>Ling now attends Rice University in Houston, TX.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you love about MPA? From the beginning, MPA focuses on every part of learning\u2014curiosity, creativity, and discovery. In Lower School, it&#8217;s letting you grow, giving you a solid foundation of asking questions, and experiencing new things. In Middle School, it&#8217;s learning how and why things work. There&#8217;s emphasis on independence and self-expression. In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":8433,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,27,10025,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-posts","category-my-mpa-experience","category-student-experience","category-upper-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8431"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19067,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8431\/revisions\/19067"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moundsparkacademy.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}