Ocracoke student attending Harvard

By Peter Vankevich

Katie Kinnion grew up on Ocracoke. This summer she worked at the Ocracoke Coffee Company and by late August was back in school, a junior at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Below are her reflections from an interview on the lawn of the coffee shop on how she got to Harvard and her future plans.

I moved to Ocracoke from “Little” Washington in Beaufort County when I was in the second grade when my mom, Kristen Potter, married Bubbie Boos, who runs Teeter’s Campground. I attended Ocracoke School up to my sophomore year. 

I’m studying neuroscience with a minor in education.  I’m passionate about neuro law. It’s a new field using neuroimaging in the courtroom.

I’ve always been a good student.  I’ve always been very passionate about learning and doing well academically. I loved being in the classroom, my teachers and my fellow classmates. School has always been my thing.

What kind of books do I like?

I have loved reading ever since I could get my hands on a book. I’m a big mystery gal, so Freida McFadden is one of my favorites. She’s a great writer. I’m currently reading “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath. It’s a great book, but kind of a sad story.

I intended to graduate from Ocracoke School, but after Hurricane Dorian hit during my freshman year of high school, things were pretty bleak. We didn’t have a school for a while, and so for somebody who lives for a school, it was kind of hard, and that prompted me to apply to the School of Science and Mathematics, a boarding school in Durham, and I went there for my last two years of high school. My classmate Iris McClain also applied and was accepted.  

It is nationally ranked as one of the best academic high schools, started in 1980 by North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.

So, I went from a sophomore class of 13 to 300 students. It was a change that I thought I was ready for. But when I got there, I was a little overwhelmed and the classes were really rigorous. The students were very smart and friendly and wanted to help each other.

Did I have to work a little harder than Ocracoke for good grades?

I kind of coasted through school up until then. But when I took my first calculus exam, it was not very pretty, but it gave me a better appreciation for the amount of work that you put into what you want to achieve. I found that the harder you work, the more rewarding it is to see that that grade at the end of the day, or that award.

As for extracurriculars, when I was at Ocracoke, I did a little bit of everything, including playing volleyball and basketball. I shifted my focus a bit when I went to Science and Math. One of the big things is I was the editor in chief for the newspaper there, The Stentorian. So, that was a great experience. I loved doing that because you get to talk to a lot of students, reporting on different events and things like that.

I also was involved in student government as a dorm senator, and I became involved with Future Healthcare Leaders of America which shifted my focus to the health care realm.

When I started applying for college, I wanted to go to Chapel Hill. My sister, Caroline Stocks, graduated from Ocracoke in June and will study at Chapel Hill along with four other classmates. 

Graduates from Science and Math get free tuition in the UNC School System. So, by getting into Chapel Hill, it took the pressure off, and I started looking at other schools.  I applied to a couple Ivy leagues: Columbia, Cornell and Harvard.

Applying to Harvard required a personal statement and an opportunity for an extra essay which I chose to do.  I focused on how the importance of community has been for me, from our small island and at my boarding school and my desire to help others. They accepted me.

I thought I was pretty set for my concentration, science, specifically psychology and brain science.

I wanted to go to med school and took premed classes. In my sophomore year I started shadowing a doctor. I have a fear of blood, but I didn’t realize it was so bad until then. I thought that I didn’t know if I could do this for the rest of my life.

I took some time to reflect and shifted gears away from med school. In college it’s about experimenting and learning what you like and don’t like. You know you have to figure something out along the way.

(As a) neuroscience major, we deal with the brain and neural pathways. My specific focus is on how the brain functions and the behavior track.

My plan currently is after graduating to go to law school. Campus life this past year has been stressful for all of us students by the attacks on Harvard. I’m worried that some of my fellow foreign students will not be allowed to return.