At first glance, junior Nate Ney is a typical STEM nerd: He’s been a member of Math Club since middle school, joined Science Club and Science Bowl during high school, is a United States of America Mathematical Olympiad competitor and took Calculus BC his sophomore year.

But Ney’s interests span beyond simply just STEM courses and activities, and recently he has become more involved in humanity-related activities like History Bowl — an involvement that has inspired him to expand his comfort zone. 
  
“I don’t feel like programming in front of a computer screen is all I want to do in the future,” Ney said. “There is more to life than that.”

With Ney’s variety of activities revolving around STEM, he decided to incorporate another one of his interests into his schedule during his sophomore year by joining the History Bowl team.

“I loved [History Bowl] for a lot of reasons,” Ney said. “The competitions were extremely fun, and traveling to places like Washington, D.C., was a great experience.”

In addition, Ney became accustomed to the different people in both STEM and humanities-related activities.

“Getting to meet new people and create new friendships is really important to me,” Ney said. “That had actually been one of the reasons why I joined History Bowl.  Now that I am participating in both STEM courses and humanity activities, I know more people with different interests in all aspects of academics.”

Ney said that some of his most treasured memories of History Bowl include activities in which team members got to know each other.  For example, during the week before nationals, the team called up 2014 graduate and former captain of History Bowl Nick Chow and did some ice breaker activities over phone, such as getting to know the teammates better by going around the circle and getting to know each other.

While History Bowl provided Ney with new and exciting experiences, it also increased his burden.

“There are a lot of competitions,” Ney said, “and with every competition also comes hours of preparation. The time History Bowl often took added additional pressure to my schedule.”

Because of this, Ney opted not to take APUSH, which is widely regarded as an especially time-consuming course.

“It was awkward when on the [History Bowl] application they asked, ‘What has it been like taking APUSH?’” Ney laughed.

Still, Ney is satisfied with his choice. Currently, he is looking into classes that he will enjoy during his senior year, like drama and art.

“I want to gain more confidence and break out of my shell,” Ney said. “I didn’t even ask anyone to prom this year, even though I really wanted to go, because I was too shy.”

With only one year left to explore his options, Ney is determined to organize his schedule so that he can give the humanities an even bigger chance before college.

“I know that I only get one life and I want to focus on more than just math- and science-related courses.”