Tianchi Zhou is an IB junior, an athlete, and an artist. In order to really gain a perspective on this student, I spent a Sunday with him for an interview.
When taking a look at his academics, Tianchi definitely embodies the IB spirit. Born in China and immigrated to the United States in the fifth grade, Tianchi described the struggle to acclimate to the new country: “My English was definitely bad when I came to this country, but it’s improving. It’s good now,” Zhou stated.

His schedule mirrors the ones of other IB kids, and he does well with the rigorous courses. When asked about his feelings about IB, Tianchi described a love-hate relationship: he likes the people, but doesn’t really like the work.
As an athlete as well as a student, Tianchi serves to be a well-rounded student. He is on the boys’ tennis team at QHHS and practices often, even during the off-season. “I practice on the weekends if I have time. I also go to the gym,” Zhou says, “Sometimes I teach my friends. I have a lot of fun in tennis.”

Zhou also falls into the ‘IB Art Kid’ category. The majority of IB students take Psychology SL for their sixth period; However, Zhou is amongst the few others who decidedly took IB Art HL. “It’s a lot of work, but it’s actually fun. It’s kind of relaxing, actually,” Zhou remarked. I had the option to look through his sketchbook (or ‘journals’ as the IB art kids call it), and saw a variety of drawings. The most recent one was a figure of a male model that Tianchi had sketched. But throughout, I saw sketches surrounding real-life art pieces, zentangles, and even mini-lessons about how to shade, create value and color, etc. As I flipped from the first few pages to the end, I could definitely see the improvement. Though his rendering of the piece ‘Darkytown Rebellion’ by Kara Walker in October shows his talent, when compared to his Christmas-themed perspective drawing done in December, the increase of skill between the pieces is apparent.

He hopes to do well on his exams and continue playing tennis during his senior year. He is somewhat excited, but also nervous about the amount of work that awaits him. As for his future, he doesn’t quite know what he wishes to do, but he agrees that he wants to apply his talents to the science field.

With such a jam-packed schedule, we at the Ubiquity wish Tianchi good luck in the future!