Calista Fyfe is into pretty much everything. It’s not uncommon for the Dallas International School senior to debate policy in her global politics class in the morning, grind through a basketball practice in the afternoon and work on designing an elaborate costume at night. That’s just a typical day.

“Being at DIS has shaped me into loving a lot of different things,” she said. “That’s why I fell in love with it. I want to try different things.”

That curiosity led Calista, who’s been at DIS since kindergarten, to try out for the basketball team in high school, despite not having played extensively growing up. A few whirlwind seasons later, she’s been recruited to play collegiately at Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts school in New York.

“The coach came out last year to one of our practices and he liked us,” she said. “I visited campus in October, met some of the girls and got to see the gym. We haven’t had a signing ceremony yet, but we are going to and I’m going to be playing.”

Calista said that she never envisioned herself as a college athlete, but once she joined the DIS basketball team, she couldn’t get enough of the sport.

“It’s definitely weird, because if you would have told me a couple years back that I was going to be playing basketball in college, I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said. “But it’s awesome. (DIS basketball coach) Jones is awesome. I’m a point guard and one of the captains so I help lead the team, and I just love it.”

Playing basketball has also helped her change her perspective and attitude. She’s learned a lot about teamwork and leadership.

“I think a lot of what DIS stresses is academics and independence, but through basketball I’ve learned to rely on and support other people to be better,” she said. “We aren’t necessarily a spectacular team in terms of on-court play, but we’ve learned with each other. You don’t need to win all the time. You can just do something because you love it.”

But basketball isn’t her only love, or her first. That would be art. Calista is in IB Visual Arts, a small, extremely high-level art class. Instead of a strict curriculum, teachers encourage free thinking and individual expression.

“It’s been really interesting finding out who I am through art and what I like to do,” she said. “Being able to do my own thing and create my own work and get to see myself develop through art is really helpful. I find myself doing it now even when I don’t have to.”

Calista’s art take many forms, from photography to drawing, painting, printmaking and costume design. She’s even been featured in the Dallas Morning News for one of the costumes she made and wore to Dallas Fan Days (previously Dallas Comic Con).

“Art is definitely something I want to pursue in college,” she said. “It’s been a lot of fun. Even making mistakes and learning to make it work, it’s been fun.”

As a student at a liberal arts college, Calista won’t have a set major, though she plans to focus on politics and political science.

“Loving a lot of things is why I fell in love with liberal arts,” she said. “But my dream job would be a UN ambassador for a French-speaking country, somewhere in Africa or around the globe.”

Now so close to the end of her journey at DIS, Calista said her experiences at the school, including the struggles and challenges, have shaped who she is.

“Being a French school, there were some things that my family found odd, because we’re all American,” she said. “But it was good to learn to adopt a new mentality. It is definitely challenging, but there are still a lot of fun things to do. The teachers are awesome. They help us out so much, especially in high school. Getting to learn French is awesome. It’s been tough, but it’s like a family. It’s worth it. I’ll definitely miss it.”

The chatty, do-it-all senior stops talking, just for a moment.

“Geez now I feel like I’m going to cry!”

But she doesn’t. She hustles out of the office and, just a few minutes later, she’s in the art studio, working.

The effect is astonishing when you walk into the reception area or administration wing at the Churchill campus of Dallas International School and it’s equally impressive on the fourth floor of the Waterview campus: a wall of student faces looking back at you, many of them dressed in the traditional clothing of their family heritage, all of them expressing their cultural identity.

It’s the work of Jerome Poulalier, and it’s called “Picture Our World.” Poulalier, a French photographer and artist, was commissioned by Dallas International School to beautify both campuses with his work. But his piece doesn’t serve purely aesthetic purposes.

“We started thinking about a way to promote the cultural diversity among the DIS students in order to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of the school,” Poulalier said. “So we first wanted to involve all the students in this project. Then we thought about how they could express their differences and similarities.”

These ideas led Poulalier and his team to instruct students to select a word that best represented their culture and values. They were then photographed displaying the word while dressed in the clothing of their choice. There were traditional robes, sports team t-shirts and even some DIS uniforms. The portraits were then printed in black and white and mounted on the wall.

Poulalier worked closely with members of the DIS community throughout the project.

“My favorite part was probably the shooting sessions with the few art students I worked with that helped me shoot all the other students,” he said. “It was good to see them getting ready, posing and laughing in the shooting room.

“Then if I had to choose another favorite part it would be the ‘after project’ when the kids and parents saw the final result on the murals, being happy and looking at all the portraits and values and traditional outfits of everyone else. That was magic.”

Since DIS is home to over 700 students from more than 50 different countries, the project was meant to highlight the incredible diversity of the student body.

“I hope people gain awareness on how important diversity is, especially at a school where students spend most of their time for years and years,” Poulalier said. “All of the students are really open-minded.”

The completed piece has enhanced the ambience at both campuses, but after months of work between artists, students and teachers, it’s done so much more.

“It means a lot,” Poulalier said. “I’ve been helped by the wonderful DIS staff to realize this project with them. The kids were fantastic, the teachers, the administration, everybody got involved at some point and we are now all proud of being able to make it.

“It was a big project involving a lot of people, so I’m proud of it. I first wanted this project to raise awareness about cultural diversity and it ended showing this plus effectiveness of a group project with students, artists and administration.” 

Last week, Dallas International School competed in its first ever Model UN conference in Waco, Texas. Eight delegates from the 25 person team were sent to debate political issues and reenact negotiations surrounding an historical crisis.

“They had a lot of fun with it,” said Patrick Dennis, the faculty supervisor for the team. “It was a more relaxed conference, but it was still formal in its presentation. We weren’t the only school there participating in their first conference.”

The Model UN team at DIS was created last school year, pulling participants from among the sophomores, juniors and seniors at the Waterview campus. Though the students trained throughout the year for the rigors of competition, Dennis waited patiently to sign them up for their first conference.

“There was a lot of enthusiasm for it, but we wanted to make sure it stuck,” he said. “The competitions aren’t easy.”

Indeed, they are not. Model UN conferences typically consist of two parts: a general assembly and an historical counsel. The general assembly deals with more contemporary issues, such as piracy and human trafficking. The historical counsel is a recreation of an historical crisis, such as the Six Day War of 1967. Those topics were the puzzles that students at the Waco conference were tasked with solving. In each situation, teams are assigned a country to represent (DIS was Bulgaria). Debate and, hopefully, compromise ensues amongst the participants to help move the theoretical United Nations to a resolution. Each issue takes hours to solve.

“It takes a lot more than just raising your hand and saying ‘Yep, that’s a good idea,’” Dennis said. “It gives students a great appreciation for how hard the real UN’s job is. They love the engagement.”

A little preparation doesn’t hurt either. Before the conference, students read up on the Six Day War of 1967 and its aftermath. They researched various historical aspects and drafted papers on what their group’s position on the war would be. They came to Waco ready to go.

“I think they can learn to understand the world’s problems, especially as it relates to global politics,” Dennis said. “They also understand the peacekeeping process. They see how cooperation is necessary and how compromise works. Overall, it gives them a more global perspective, and it allows them to see the point of view of another country or another person.”

The students are already planning their next conference. They could go to San Antonio in January or participate in Dallas in April. They’re already trying to convince Dennis to enter them in one of the national competitions in New York or Virginia next year.

“They wanted to enter in the conference at Harvard,” Dennis said. “I kind of nixed that idea. But the enthusiasm is there.”

Alejandro Jaramillo feels most comfortable sitting an inch off the ground, going 85 mph.

Jaramillo is a kart racer. And we’re not just talking about the go-karts you can buy at a sporting goods store that you see tooling around your neighborhood every weekend. No, we are talking serious karts that move at high speed and are raced all around the world on custom tracks.

Jaramillo, a 9^th grader at Dallas International School, says racing is in his blood.

“I’m a third-generation racer in my family,” Jaramillo said. “My grandpa has raced for over 45 years. I’ve gone to races since I was two or three years old. My dad found a local race track for me when I was little and since then, I’ve loved it. It’s been part of my life.”

But c’mon. As a kid who’s never sat behind the wheel of a real car before, not even to just languish in the endless traffic on I-35, zooming around at speeds in excess of 80 mph without a roof or doors has to be scary, right?

“When I first started five years ago, it was a little startling,” Jaramillo said. “When you first jump into it without that much experience, it’s a little scary. But once you get into it, you love the speed and adrenaline and it drives you to go faster and push harder.”

OK. But what about crashes?

“Sometimes crashes are inevitable, but some people try to avoid them at all costs,” Jaramillo said. “I’m aggressive when I pass, but I know how to avoid accidents. I spend a lot of time training physically and mentally to improve my reaction times. The biggest thing for a driver is to have lightning fast reaction times.”

Which, believe me, Jaramillo does. He whips out his phone to show me a video of him at a recent race where he successfully avoided a massive pile-up. Through a GoPro attached to his helmet, you can see the karts all around him smash together, a chain reaction cause by one driver’s errant steering. For what is literally a fraction of a second, an opening between all those wrecking karts appears, and Jaramillo jams down on the accelerator, breezing right through it. I have to watch the video a couple times to see how he did it. It’s that fast.

So it’s no wonder Jaramillo is one of the best racers in his age group on the planet. Last week, he competed in the IAME International Finals in Le Mans, France. It’s a prestigious race in which about 3,000 drivers apply for entry and only 140 get accepted. Jaramillo was one of only three Americans at the race in the Junior category. He travels all around the world for races.

“When I started, we did more local races,” Jaramillo said. “But around 2013 I started going out of Texas. The first place I went was New Orleans, and then I did nationals in North Carolina. Since then I’ve gone all around the country to different tracks. I’ve also been to Italy, Belgium and other places.”

Jaramillo said Dallas International School has helped prepare him for his budding racing career.

“Motorsport is a very unique sport,” he said. “I feel like DIS has helped me keep up with school but still be able to go race. They teach me in multiple languages, so I’m more prepared to go to France. The team I race with is a Belgian team, and they all speak French. So I’m prepared perfectly for that.”

Jaramillo’s ultimate goal is to become a professional racer. But he knows there will be bumps and wrecks along the way. His advice to students, aspiring racers and himself is the same: zoom past the crashes.

“Always keep your head up,” he said. “Every once in a while you’ll have troubles with the kart or the engine. Keep digging, keep practicing, or else you aren’t going to get anywhere. As much as it isn’t easy, you’ll find your way through it and eventually have success.”

Sonja Greil is a graduate of the Dallas International School class of 2017 and was recently accepted into a prestigious veterinary medicine program in Edinburgh, Scotland. As she prepares for her first semester at university, we sat down with her to learn more about her future plans and past successes as a DIS Tigre.

Let me know more about this program that you got into. What does it entail? Why was it so important for you to get into this program?

The BVM&S (Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery) is a five year veterinary program. It basically entails all aspects you should learn to become a veterinarian meaning lectures like Physiology, Anatomy, Histology, Public Health etc. but also research projects and hands-on experience with animals from the very beginning.

After high school I already knew that I wanted to become a veterinarian. In the U.S., people usually go to college for four years and then have to apply to a vet school to study another four years. So going to the vet school right away seemed much more convenient to me. Also, I am originally from Germany and just moved to the U.S. two and a half years ago. I still considered Europe as my home and it was important for me to return there and be able to practice there in the future. At the same time I didn’t want to limit myself to only be allowed to work in Europe. So in short: Studying veterinary in US meant that I could only work in the U.S. and studying in Germany meant only being able to work in Europe. The R(D)SVS is accredited worldwide which of course opens many doors for me in the future.

What aspect of going to university in Edinburgh excites you the most?

Well of course Edinburgh is a place I have never been to before so it is more or less like being thrown into the cold water. Sometimes, I ask myself the question what if I don’t like it there? This is part of the risk and risks are also exciting.

Then, I am also excited to meet so many new people again from all over the world who have similar interests as I do. I am excited to be able to use my knowledge that I have learned in high school and apply it maybe in the practical field. Veterinary medicine is such a broad field, which unfortunately a lot of people don’t know, so I am excited to find out more about it and myself as well.

What are some of your goals that you would like to accomplish during your time at university?

I would like to find out where my specific interests and talents are, whether it’s the clinical field, research, being part of Public Health organizations or even just what kind of animals I would like to work with. The reason why I went to Scotland is also to get a new cultural experience and eventually figure out where I would like to work or live in the future. I think college or university is all about finding out what you really want for yourself.

How do you feel like Dallas International School prepared you for your college experience?

Like DIS, R(D)SVS is a very international school. During the last two years I have met so many different people with different cultural backgrounds. DIS probably taught me how to be part of a cultural diversity and to also accept and enjoy the challenges that it brings.

Then of course there’s the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. I was able to take two sciences on higher level (Biology and Chemistry) in addition to the two languages (German and English). It is a lot of material to cover and, to be honest, not always easy. But the teachers really helped and pushed me because they knew that I wanted to study veterinary medicine. I think I am well prepared knowledge wise but I also had to develop strategies to understand difficult topics and to manage a lot of work but at the same time enjoy it. The IB is supposed to be an autonomous program so we had to learn to organize and take a lot of responsibility for ourselves. Also, DIS encouraged me to take part in several clubs where again I had to take over responsibility and make decisions. I think those are skills that I will need in college for sure. 

What do you miss most about DIS?

Most of all things I miss our small but familiar community. Over the two years I got very close to a lot of people, especially the ones from my grade. It is hard for me to imagine that we are all over the world now and a lot of us are very far from each other. But I am also happy for them getting into great colleges and having the chance to have so many new experiences.

If you could give a piece of advice to the students at DIS, what would it be?

I did not get into the school right away but I was placed on the waiting list. I did not have an offer for a really long time, until recently. In the beginning, I was disappointed and a little bit discouraged since everyone else already knew where to go. Although it sounds cheesy my advice would be to never give up. I had to send a lot of emails, had to make a lot of phone calls, had to work to get good grades and wonder whether it was actually worth doing all this work. In the end, you have nothing to lose, so just try your best!