Sebastian Chevalier is the co-president of Lincoln’s Brothers of Color. This month, he sat down with The Cardinal Times to reflect on his years at Lincoln.

What type of activities are you involved in at Lincoln?

At Lincoln, I’m really only involved with the Brothers of Color club as one of the co-presidents and occasionally go to a Black Student Union meeting every once in a while.

Do you have one extracurricular that is most special to you?

I do extracurriculars involving things such as civil rights and racial justice, which I’m very passionate about, but what I think is most special to me at the end of the day is music and film. I spend most of my free time making beats on my laptop as well as brainstorming and writing down story ideas for future films I eventually want to create.

What advice would you give to an incoming student?

For an incoming freshman or any grade really I’d tell them to find their crowd and their people as early as possible. I feel like in high school it’s super easy to lose touch with yourself and become a social climber. But that can be pretty harmful in the long run because you can waste years of your own potential just by trying to satisfy people you really don’t even have any genuine connection with. To sum it up, one thing I always tell myself is that it’s not about the destination or the journey, but who you meet when you reach that finish line.

How has Lincoln High School shaped you?

In terms of academics, my self-esteem has definitely taken some heavy blows due to Lincoln as well as making me more prone to stress. But on the flip side to that, I’ve definitely learned more new approaches to dealing with adversity in efficient ways because of how dense the workload and curriculum can be for some of my classes. I’ve become much better at working my way around problems in life rather overwhelming myself by hitting it head-on. In terms of my social life here though I’d say Lincoln has just made me want to leave Portland even quicker. Without going into too much detail I’ll just say that in my view, Lincoln is the epitome of both everything right with this city, as well as everything wrong with this city. So be- cause I lived here all my life (18 years) I really don’t want to have to deal with what’s wrong with this city anymore–especially when I’m trying to get an education.

What is one word to sum up your experience at Lincoln?

Strange. Pretty strange.