Johannesburg - The words “get involved” has been the motto for Linksfield King David High school matric learner, Shannon Wolpe who said he was relieved to be completing high school and looks forward to venturing into a career in medicine.
The star learner has achieved nine distinctions and completes his matric year with an aggregate of 95.5%. He has also achieved 90% in three languages, these being English, Afrikaans and Hebrew.
“High school transforms one’s life, once you get involved you learn skills which I believe are valuable to use in the rest of your life. Getting involved in school has taught me to be less of an introvert and I’ve developed great skills, one of the most important ones being time management,” said Wolpe.
In Grade 11, he was diagnosed with partial epilepsy, a condition that causes multiple seizures and affects only one area of the brain. Wolpe describes himself as a left-brain person because his favourite subjects were mathematics, science and biology.
He said he found comfort in researching and understanding partial epilepsy through biology as well as how to deal with it.
In 2019, Wolpe explained that he lost one of his close cousins in a tragic incident that caught the family off guard. He said as heartbreaking as this was, he found that school became a safe place and with the support from close friends he was able to have a different perspective of life.
“Complaining is wasting breath, nothing in life is inconvenient or irrelevant. After my cousin’s passing, I knew I could not just complete school and be irrelevant, I had to make this journey significant,” said Wolpe.
The 19-year-old is known for being the only male hip hop dancer in his grade and was chosen in Grade 10 to travel to Mexico to attend a global youth conference. He has also formed part of the Johannesburg Union Council.
When asking him what his words of encouragement to current matriculants were, he said to take the year day-by-day.
“Everyone always builds an expectation of the matric year; it is not as intimating as it seems. Your entire life does not only depend on matric. You can’t look at matric as one whole goal, procrastinate less and you will get through things with flying colours.”
The Star