Many students have had that night, the all-nighter, the night in which they have a test in every subject, two papers due by midnight, and a mountain of history notes; they feel as if their heads are about to burst. These stressful nights are a regular occurrence for senior Billy Kosmidis who is enrolled in all AP classes this year as well as being president of Model UN for the second year in a row and interning for a senator over the summer.
Kosmidis is enrolled in AP Psychology, AP Environmental Science, AP English Literature, AP Spanish Literature, and AP Calculus AB. His favorite class is AP Psychology, according to Kosmidis.
“I think class is really interesting,” Kosmidis said. “Ms. Schullo always has us up and doing something, so I think that [class] is the most fun to be in […] so its kind of a nice part of my day.”
He also enjoys some of the in-class activities that Sejal Schullo, AP Psychology teacher, leads.
“Last week, she was trying to show us that there is a threshold for a stimulus that we can consciously recognize in our lives and she picked me as the demo in the class,” Kosmidis said. “So I came up and she gave me an envelope in both hands and one of them had a quarter in it and she said, ‘Ok, which envelope is heavier?’ and each time I got it right and then she gave me two textbooks and one textbook had a coin in it and another one didn’t and then she said, ‘Now which one is heavier?’ [but] I got them right every time so she was kind of annoyed.”
Even though he enjoys most of his AP classes, according to Kosmidis, the workload is pretty hard.
“I’ll usually start my homework around 5 p.m. and I won’t go to bed until like midnight or 1 a.m. each night, and that’s when I’m doing my homework fully,” Kosmidis said. “The thing is when I’m not doing homework, I’m doing Model UN and so like every night […] is hard.”
This homework load also has an effect on Kosmidis’ social life, according to Keelan Meehan, best friend and Model UN teammate.
“It’s really weird because I’m the type of person who will hang out with someone over doing my school work,” Meehan said. “I’d rather have fun. He’s like, ‘No, no, no. I need to get this done.’”
In addition to his AP classes, Kosmidis is also president of Model UN for the second year in a row. According to Kosmidis, it takes up a huge amount of time.
“President is kind of like the catch all, do all, so I’m like constantly doing everything, like I call Mr. Jozwick my second father at this school because I think I’m with him more than my parents, but I can’t even answer the question of how much work I do at home because the thing is like I love doing Model UN work,” Kosmidis said.
According to Kosmidis, one of his fondest memories is his trip to the national Model UN conference in New York City last spring with 13 of his teammates. And according to Terry Jozwik, Model UN sponsor, it was a very important time for Kosmidis’ role in Model UN to shine.
“In NYC last year [for] the first time we took the team out of state on a plane to New York, and […] every time I walked in the room Billy and Keelan were speaking, and Billy likes to wear bowties so I have an image of him with a bowtie and there he was talking to 250 people,” Jozwik said.
In addition to going to nationals in NYC, the GBS Model UN team placed first in their ranking. Kosmidis reflects on the moments after they announced that GBS had won the competition.
“My favorite thing or memory was just walking down Fifth Avenue,” Kosmidis said. “It was a big hustle and bustle NYC street, and we were all just chanting the Glenbrook fight song, because we were just so happy.”
Besides being in all AP classes and president of Model UN, Kosmidis also interned with two representatives, Daniel Biss and Bob Dold, over the summer.
“I did a bunch of research with [Biss] and met with him, and it was really cool one on one work, and that’s continued on throughout the year, so it’s like when a boy scout writes him and is like ‘Can we get a letter?’ and I know people think it’s him writing them but it’s actually me writing them,” Kosmidis said. “So fun fact, if you get a letter from your senator, I guarantee they didn’t write it. It was some high school intern.”
As for Kosmidis’ future, he is already planning for college.
“My list is like at 20 schools right now,” Kosmidis said. “My top three are Georgetown, University of Chicago, Northwestern. I really like those because I think they’re all a little different and [different] difficulty levels as well. We’ll see what college sculpts me into though.”
According to Jozwik, Kosmidis’ character is what shines through.
“He really prides himself on what he does at conferences, so even if he doesn’t succeed, I’m incredibly proud of him because I know he is going to come back and try even harder,” Jozwik said. “I think we need political leaders that he has the potential to become; people with an open mind, people with a relentless spirit to make a bad situation as good as it can be.”
