Like all seniors, Paul Schrieber’s time in school has been unexpectedly cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, his time at Cinco will be far less than other seniors, by an entire year. Schrieber loaded up on graduation requirements to be able to graduate in only three years, taking both junior and senior level classes during his final year at Cinco.

“It was my parents who really first started looking into it,” Schrieber said. “They were interviewing some seniors who had just graduated and some who were in school, and the biggest complaint was that there was so much time, people could take things like double early release and relax a lot more, and they would lose momentum. When they got to college and things picked up more, they had problems getting that momentum back up and getting into the groove of things. So we decided it would be best to try to cut out the extra time and keep that momentum going right into college.”

Schrieber will be attending the University of Texas at Arlington this fall, majoring in nursing and minoring in a business discipline- “probably accounting.” He is following in his family’s footsteps; he said his mother, a nurse at Memorial Hermann Hospital, “heavily influenced” his desire to pursue nursing, and his aunt and uncle on his mom’s side are also in nursing.

“I just think nursing is the best field,” Schrieber said. “There’s good job security; you can see now in this pandemic more than ever how the nursing field is staying open and is so important because people will always need medical help. Beyond that, just helping people in general is one of my biggest drives. I want to be able to come home and say ‘You know, I helped someone today.’”

After getting his bachelor’s in nursing, Schrieber hopes to become a doctor of nurse anesthesia practice (DNAP). He will have to do two to three years of critical care nursing, then pursue a doctorate of nurse anesthesia.

“I’m most excited for the nursing classes,” Schrieber said. “I’m in AP Bio right now and going through the course during the school year I thought it was a lot and it made me think ‘Man, do I really want to go into nursing?’ But now that I’m studying for the AP exam and looking back, it’s all clicking and it makes sense, and now it’s so interesting and I can’t wait to learn all this higher level stuff. College is the best, I just can’t wait to experience it. ”

Schrieber said it was impossible to pinpoint a favorite memory from high school, as the whole experience has been so “great and crazy.”

“I know a lot of seniors are disappointed with everything that’s happened, especially with graduation being pushed to the summer and everyone will have to walk the stage later,” Schrieber said. “I’m okay with it being pushed back though, I’m just excited to graduate and I’m thankful for all the classes I’ve been able to take. At my old school district in Illinois they just didn’t have that; I was looking at their program recently and they only have like five AP classes, and here we have so many. I’m just so lucky to be here.”

According to Schrieber, graduating on an accelerated timetable has definitely led to challenges; he took the first semester of APUSH in-person, at the same time as he was taking its second semester, online, while also taking senior-status courses required to graduate such as government and economics.

“Especially this year, as basically still a junior jumping up into these senior classes, it’s been challenging since I hardly knew anyone,” Schrieber said. “I’ve made new friends in the senior class for sure, but it definitely threw me for a loop, coming into these classes and seeing all these unfamiliar faces, and of course I’ve gotten to see my junior friends less. I get to get out there into the real world earlier though, really start working and helping people in the nursing field, which is exciting.”

Schrieber’s advice to underclassmen would be to keep your goals in mind and work hard, and to disregard drama, as “that won’t matter in five years, but your grades and what you can do will.”

“You have to stay focused and think of the end goal,” Schrieber said. “Hard work and dedication are the most important things I’ve learned. There were so many times where a project or an essay was due the next day and all those times I could’ve said ‘screw it’ and not put my effort into it, but that goal and drive to really work on it is so important. That goal setting and dedication gets you through high school.”