Whiz Kid: High School Student Uses Camera Skills for Everything

Name, age: Ricki Lynn Berkoski, 16

School:

Achievement: Ricki Lynn balances her passion for photography with sports, being the editor-in-chief of the yearbook, a high grade point average and three jobs.

Key to Awesomeness: Ricki finds time for everything and cultivates her passion for photography every day.

As the first junior editor-in-chief of the yearbook, Ricki not only helps set up the layout, she is one of the main photographers having taken the majority of the pictures in the yearbook.

“I went to yearbook committee during lunch and my free periods all year,” she said, plus she takes photographs at events and around the school.

On top of that, she is using her photographic talent artistically by submitting photos to Point Break, the high school’s literary magazine. She decided to start helping Point Break work on layout and editing.

Athletically, Ricki is pole vaulting for varsity track and field and is a mid-field player on the varsity field hockey team.

As a varsity sports member, she is also on varsity club, a fund-raising team open to athletes, where she also serves as designated photographer.

She is on National Honor Society and has been on honor roll every semester of her high school career.

Ricki also has a hand in acting. She has been doing STAGES for the past six years. “I feel acting develops character because you are pretending to be someone you are not and you try all these different things and at the end of the day you know who you are,” she said.

She also just started working at and in addition to her job at the . She likes to keep busy but she said, “The hardest part is balancing it all.”

She is only a junior but she is thinking ahead. She said her top-choice colleges are New York University and University of San Francisco for photography or acting.