Oscar Gomez ’14, a sophomore at Lehigh University, remembers starting Gill St. Bernard’s as a new ninth grader and feeling immediately drawn to the school’s welcoming atmosphere. He recalls, “GSB really tried to make every student feel at home, and the teachers were by far the most caring I have ever had.” Gomez, like so many GSB alumni, credits the interest his teachers took in him and his growth, both personally and academically, as a contributing factor to his success. “The school really helped me to be the student and person that I was meant to be.”

 

While at Gill, Gomez’ teachers encouraged him to take academic risks. In particular, he remembers that it was their faith in his abilities that led him to undertake honors and advanced placement coursework. As a junior, Gomez took on honors level coursework in calculus, literature and Spanish, and as a senior, he successfully managed A.P. Calculus AB, AP Microeconomics and A.P Spanish. Looking back, Gomez still considers those A.P. courses as the biggest risk he took at Gill, but the rewards were enormous. He notes, “Doing well in those courses helped prepare me to be a business major in college, but more important, they helped me realize that I could take on any challenge I set my mind to.” In addition to his A. P. coursework, Gomez credits the 11th-Grade Scientific Literature Review with teaching him valuable skills for college-level work. “I didn’t realize it at the time,” he says, “but learning how to write a research paper at Gill has helped me in a lot of my courses at Lehigh. I am able to find the information I’m looking for and then say what I mean concisely.”