The Best of the Best Highlighted Here
Andrew Abrudescu
Diana Kim
Editor in Chief '17
He is seen at volleyball practice, at AIDS awareness, on an ambulance and at Shared Decision Making Committee meetings. Now a senior, he has made it far since freshman year. He is Andrew Abrudescu, the smart guy who is often the bane of every teacher’s existence. But in reality, he is an intelligent, caring student and athlete that hopes to end his high school career on a high note.
Though he enjoys sports and various extracurricular activities, Andrew is first a student than an athlete. Since freshman year he has taken on 10 AP classes, taking 5 AP classes this year alone. His strong subjects had at one point been Math and Science, but throughout high school his core subjects have become English and Social Studies. “The teachers I’ve had mostly influenced the change. Throughout high school my strong points became English and Soc (Social Studies), thanks to Mr. Gilden, Ms. Babkes, Mr. Griffin and Mrs. Behar”, he shared. He hopes to use what skills he has attained to focus on business or law in college and through.
Despite his focus on academics, Andrew is also an athlete. He has played on JV lacrosse as an underclassmen and on Varsity volleyball for 2 years, after 2 years of JV volleyball. His height translates well into his position as a spiker. He stated, “I like the teamwork and cooperation that is necessitated in volleyball. There is no such thing as a ball hog… and in the end we need to work as a team to get that point and get that win”. Andrew has learned many valuable lessons on the team and encourages underclassmen to pursue being a part of the team regardless of academic rigors.
As a senior year, Andrew has various aspirations to end on a high note. He mentioned, “I hope to experience every aspect of high school… discover new things and leave my comfort zone...I want a good idea of my identity before college and I hope to leave a legacy that reflects it at Great Neck North High”. Already done so much, Andrew has not ceased to better the school and the various programs it provides for its students. He hopes to launch a peer tutoring program for students in high school to alleviate the stress of extra help scheduling, through the Shared Decision Making Committee.
He’s known as a goof and he’s known to have quite the reputation with teachers, but he is a student like the rest of us, with appreciation for 3 years and 3 months at North High and aspirations for the 5 months to come and through to the rest of his life in the real world. He is Andrew Abrudescu, the student, the athlete, the aspirant.
Editor in Chief '17
He is seen at volleyball practice, at AIDS awareness, on an ambulance and at Shared Decision Making Committee meetings. Now a senior, he has made it far since freshman year. He is Andrew Abrudescu, the smart guy who is often the bane of every teacher’s existence. But in reality, he is an intelligent, caring student and athlete that hopes to end his high school career on a high note.
Though he enjoys sports and various extracurricular activities, Andrew is first a student than an athlete. Since freshman year he has taken on 10 AP classes, taking 5 AP classes this year alone. His strong subjects had at one point been Math and Science, but throughout high school his core subjects have become English and Social Studies. “The teachers I’ve had mostly influenced the change. Throughout high school my strong points became English and Soc (Social Studies), thanks to Mr. Gilden, Ms. Babkes, Mr. Griffin and Mrs. Behar”, he shared. He hopes to use what skills he has attained to focus on business or law in college and through.
Despite his focus on academics, Andrew is also an athlete. He has played on JV lacrosse as an underclassmen and on Varsity volleyball for 2 years, after 2 years of JV volleyball. His height translates well into his position as a spiker. He stated, “I like the teamwork and cooperation that is necessitated in volleyball. There is no such thing as a ball hog… and in the end we need to work as a team to get that point and get that win”. Andrew has learned many valuable lessons on the team and encourages underclassmen to pursue being a part of the team regardless of academic rigors.
As a senior year, Andrew has various aspirations to end on a high note. He mentioned, “I hope to experience every aspect of high school… discover new things and leave my comfort zone...I want a good idea of my identity before college and I hope to leave a legacy that reflects it at Great Neck North High”. Already done so much, Andrew has not ceased to better the school and the various programs it provides for its students. He hopes to launch a peer tutoring program for students in high school to alleviate the stress of extra help scheduling, through the Shared Decision Making Committee.
He’s known as a goof and he’s known to have quite the reputation with teachers, but he is a student like the rest of us, with appreciation for 3 years and 3 months at North High and aspirations for the 5 months to come and through to the rest of his life in the real world. He is Andrew Abrudescu, the student, the athlete, the aspirant.
Dr. Berzins
Diana Kim
Editor in Chief '17
There’s a room within a room within a hallway upstairs at North High with a man who has a welcoming smile below round-rimmed glasses and usually a scarf to complete his look. When students peek through the window, barely covered by open shades, he will ask you to wait, “One second!”. Hopefully at one point most students at North High have had the opportunity to pay him a visit, maybe to say hi or maybe to talk about life or about how to navigate these hallways. In that room within a room within a hallway is Dr. Anton Berzins, one of North High’s phenomenal psychologists.
It is a long and fateful story as to how Dr. Berzins came to work at Great North High School, from the paper-boy and soccer enthused athlete to the hipster, friendly psychologist. Dr. Berzins story began in Hicksville, where he grew up in a family-centered home of Caribbean and European background. He started his story, “I like to say I’m the son of two immigrants, my Dad is from Latvia, Eastern Europe and my mom is from Trinidad and Tobago. My parents met in NYC on New Year’s Eve in a Jazz Club so they have a romantic story”.
Growing up, Dr. Berzins had a large extended Caribbean family, never short of birthday parties, family gatherings, and love. Other than family, there were two big things present in his childhood that shaped his lifestyle and passions. The first was taking on the neighborhood’s paper route. Starting the days at 5AM to deliver papers ingrained in Dr. Berzins, the ability to be productive and to be motivated in pursuing his passions and aspirations. The second was developing a passion for soccer, which lasted nearly 11 years.
Since the young age of 10, Dr. Berzins travelled with a competitive travel soccer team, funding his expenses through income from his paper delivery route. Through the years he fell in love with the sport. He loved it because, in his own words, “I loved that whatever you put in, you got out… I loved that if I trained for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and then 2 or 3 hours with the team, and worked out for another 45 minutes.. It made sense that I became better”. He shared, “I grew independent, working hard… with a good foundation... and so I decided to play college soccer”. Though Dr. Berzins became aware of his passions early on, he soon encountered a major shift during his collegiate years.
At Loyola College in Baltimore, Dr. Berzins played for the school team while double majoring in history and psychology. After dedicating his whole early life to soccer, Dr. Berzins was tearful when he shared the story of his divorce from his beloved sport to pursue psychology. After graduating from Loyola College, Dr. Berzins was admitted into Columbia for a graduate degree in psychology. At this point, he met a fork in the road which he expressed as making a choice to “pursue soccer or be a nerd and study psychology, I made the mistake of being a nerd and breaking this cycle of getting hurt, recovering, then playing soccer again… I had to change my passion and my life goal”. From this understanding and change came Dr. Berzins’ new passion for adventure through travelling. But he ended his response with, “On my death bed I might say.. ‘If only I had continued playing soccer until my legs broke’... but hopefully I’ll just be happy, at 90 or 100, that my legs work”.
Now a high school psychologist, Dr. Berzins shared his first inspiration to pursue a career in the field. It began with his brother who had turned his life around through experiencing psychology. He shared, “He was a troubled kid, and he experimented.. but then when he went to college at Adelphi under a probationary program… where he was accepted under the terms of this idea ‘straight-edge’ where you don’t do drugs or don’t smoke and treat your body like a temple.. in one year I saw him change his life to become a straight A student and become jacked!”. At this moment Dr. Berzins realized that psychology did work and could change people’s lives. Seeing it firsthand, Dr. Berzins decided he too wanted to help kids do the right thing.
When asked how he ended up at Great Neck North High, Dr. Berzins gave a brief response, “Fate”. When he had finished his Masters, he landed a job at great, well-known high school and stayed for 10 years. He believed he was fortunate that the school was looking for someone young, just out of grad school, bilingual, and had worked with diverse populations. In short, he was as he stated, “I was in the right place at the right time”.
In college, Dr. Berzins had the opportunity to volunteer his summers down in South America, fulfilling his sense of adventure but also helping communities in need. Since college, Dr. Berzins has travelled to South America for 13 years in a row. Since then he has started a company called the Ecuador Professional Preparation Program with a professor at Denver University. On the program Dr. Berzins shared, “for 10 years the program has brought psychologists, social workers, teachers, principals, university professors and graduate students to Ecuador for a month to volunteer at a hospital, orphanage, community outreach center, elementary schools for 4 hours in the morning everyday and spend the afternoons in seminars on Education, Psychology and Neuroscience in Ecuador. Each week we do a Habitat for Humanity project and build homes for people”. He summed the program up as a study abroad or cultural immersion program for those in the mental health field.
Aside from his professional life, Dr. Berzins enjoys travelling and adventures. Throughout his life he’s been backpacking several times and often indulges in bungee jumping, skydiving, surfing and occasionally getting lost in the woods. He mentioned one adventure where he flew to Ecuador and had three months to get to Brazil. “There were no bus routes, itineraries or communication set up. I was just like hey… to my family.. I’ll see you in 3 months… I have a lot of crazy stories to share”.
Recently, he’s encountered the new and possibly most difficult and exciting adventure of becoming a father. During the couple months he had been on paternity leave at the start of this school year, Dr. Berzins was in California with his wife of 4 years, Laura, better known as Lola. In California, Brixton Codapaxi Berzins was born, who is just born, but cooler than the whole lot of us. Born on September 5th, in a hospital with a view of the ocean, Brixton Berzins has a Caribbean, Vietnamese and Eastern European background. Dr. Berzins dreams that his son will meet an indigenous girl and have a child with the background of the whole world. On being a Dad, Dr. Berzins revealed, “Your whole perspective changes.. it’s an awesome responsibility to have to nurture a whole other person, entirely dependent on you”.
Dr. Berzins ended the interview with insightful advice for students, parents, teachers alike, “No one is above you and no one is below you.. Whoever you meet in this world, whether it be the president or the person who picks up garbage in the street… you can learn something from him and you can teach him something....and also we’re naturally meant to be happy and pursue happiness.. it’s in our nature to be happy and joyful.. do these two things and what more is there to do?”
Editor in Chief '17
There’s a room within a room within a hallway upstairs at North High with a man who has a welcoming smile below round-rimmed glasses and usually a scarf to complete his look. When students peek through the window, barely covered by open shades, he will ask you to wait, “One second!”. Hopefully at one point most students at North High have had the opportunity to pay him a visit, maybe to say hi or maybe to talk about life or about how to navigate these hallways. In that room within a room within a hallway is Dr. Anton Berzins, one of North High’s phenomenal psychologists.
It is a long and fateful story as to how Dr. Berzins came to work at Great North High School, from the paper-boy and soccer enthused athlete to the hipster, friendly psychologist. Dr. Berzins story began in Hicksville, where he grew up in a family-centered home of Caribbean and European background. He started his story, “I like to say I’m the son of two immigrants, my Dad is from Latvia, Eastern Europe and my mom is from Trinidad and Tobago. My parents met in NYC on New Year’s Eve in a Jazz Club so they have a romantic story”.
Growing up, Dr. Berzins had a large extended Caribbean family, never short of birthday parties, family gatherings, and love. Other than family, there were two big things present in his childhood that shaped his lifestyle and passions. The first was taking on the neighborhood’s paper route. Starting the days at 5AM to deliver papers ingrained in Dr. Berzins, the ability to be productive and to be motivated in pursuing his passions and aspirations. The second was developing a passion for soccer, which lasted nearly 11 years.
Since the young age of 10, Dr. Berzins travelled with a competitive travel soccer team, funding his expenses through income from his paper delivery route. Through the years he fell in love with the sport. He loved it because, in his own words, “I loved that whatever you put in, you got out… I loved that if I trained for 2 or 3 hours in the morning and then 2 or 3 hours with the team, and worked out for another 45 minutes.. It made sense that I became better”. He shared, “I grew independent, working hard… with a good foundation... and so I decided to play college soccer”. Though Dr. Berzins became aware of his passions early on, he soon encountered a major shift during his collegiate years.
At Loyola College in Baltimore, Dr. Berzins played for the school team while double majoring in history and psychology. After dedicating his whole early life to soccer, Dr. Berzins was tearful when he shared the story of his divorce from his beloved sport to pursue psychology. After graduating from Loyola College, Dr. Berzins was admitted into Columbia for a graduate degree in psychology. At this point, he met a fork in the road which he expressed as making a choice to “pursue soccer or be a nerd and study psychology, I made the mistake of being a nerd and breaking this cycle of getting hurt, recovering, then playing soccer again… I had to change my passion and my life goal”. From this understanding and change came Dr. Berzins’ new passion for adventure through travelling. But he ended his response with, “On my death bed I might say.. ‘If only I had continued playing soccer until my legs broke’... but hopefully I’ll just be happy, at 90 or 100, that my legs work”.
Now a high school psychologist, Dr. Berzins shared his first inspiration to pursue a career in the field. It began with his brother who had turned his life around through experiencing psychology. He shared, “He was a troubled kid, and he experimented.. but then when he went to college at Adelphi under a probationary program… where he was accepted under the terms of this idea ‘straight-edge’ where you don’t do drugs or don’t smoke and treat your body like a temple.. in one year I saw him change his life to become a straight A student and become jacked!”. At this moment Dr. Berzins realized that psychology did work and could change people’s lives. Seeing it firsthand, Dr. Berzins decided he too wanted to help kids do the right thing.
When asked how he ended up at Great Neck North High, Dr. Berzins gave a brief response, “Fate”. When he had finished his Masters, he landed a job at great, well-known high school and stayed for 10 years. He believed he was fortunate that the school was looking for someone young, just out of grad school, bilingual, and had worked with diverse populations. In short, he was as he stated, “I was in the right place at the right time”.
In college, Dr. Berzins had the opportunity to volunteer his summers down in South America, fulfilling his sense of adventure but also helping communities in need. Since college, Dr. Berzins has travelled to South America for 13 years in a row. Since then he has started a company called the Ecuador Professional Preparation Program with a professor at Denver University. On the program Dr. Berzins shared, “for 10 years the program has brought psychologists, social workers, teachers, principals, university professors and graduate students to Ecuador for a month to volunteer at a hospital, orphanage, community outreach center, elementary schools for 4 hours in the morning everyday and spend the afternoons in seminars on Education, Psychology and Neuroscience in Ecuador. Each week we do a Habitat for Humanity project and build homes for people”. He summed the program up as a study abroad or cultural immersion program for those in the mental health field.
Aside from his professional life, Dr. Berzins enjoys travelling and adventures. Throughout his life he’s been backpacking several times and often indulges in bungee jumping, skydiving, surfing and occasionally getting lost in the woods. He mentioned one adventure where he flew to Ecuador and had three months to get to Brazil. “There were no bus routes, itineraries or communication set up. I was just like hey… to my family.. I’ll see you in 3 months… I have a lot of crazy stories to share”.
Recently, he’s encountered the new and possibly most difficult and exciting adventure of becoming a father. During the couple months he had been on paternity leave at the start of this school year, Dr. Berzins was in California with his wife of 4 years, Laura, better known as Lola. In California, Brixton Codapaxi Berzins was born, who is just born, but cooler than the whole lot of us. Born on September 5th, in a hospital with a view of the ocean, Brixton Berzins has a Caribbean, Vietnamese and Eastern European background. Dr. Berzins dreams that his son will meet an indigenous girl and have a child with the background of the whole world. On being a Dad, Dr. Berzins revealed, “Your whole perspective changes.. it’s an awesome responsibility to have to nurture a whole other person, entirely dependent on you”.
Dr. Berzins ended the interview with insightful advice for students, parents, teachers alike, “No one is above you and no one is below you.. Whoever you meet in this world, whether it be the president or the person who picks up garbage in the street… you can learn something from him and you can teach him something....and also we’re naturally meant to be happy and pursue happiness.. it’s in our nature to be happy and joyful.. do these two things and what more is there to do?”
Mr. Rutkowski’s Influence on Students
Jeremy Bernstein
Writer '20
Music has always been a wonderful opportunity to express oneself and do what one loves. Fortunately at Great Neck North High School, there is a great teacher who encourages many students to feel the same about music as him. Mr. Rutkowski has been a teacher at Great Neck North High for many years, and has influenced countless students through music. “Playing an instruments requires so much dedication,” Mr. Rutkowski says, “It forces you to teach you muscles and mind to do difficult things.” However, the reward greatly outweighs the work because what musicians make by playing with their instrument will “stir the emotions and intellect of all who listen to you play.”
When he was younger, Mr. Rutkowski focused his first goal on trying out compositions during high school, becoming a composer, and then a concert clarinetist. However, at the age of 30, he soon found the value of being a teacher through teaching at a high school, and falling in love with the idea of helping young people learn to love music. “I love being with young people every single day who are eager to learn about my favorite subject,” says Mr. Rutkowski.
Mr. Rutkowski’s love for music came from the influence of many people. His father was the first person to teach him and his brother how to play jazz and pop songs for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Then later on, his influence came from his middle school band teachers, Al Longo and James Tull, followed by his high school band teachers, Larry Sobol and Fred Belec. Even at North High School, the current administration -Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Saggerson- and former administration -Mr. Shine and Ms. Sanders- have greatly affected Mr. Rutkowski.
No one has a greater respect and dedication for music than Mr. Rutkowski. Throughout the years, many students have been influenced by his teachings and have grown to love music too. In addition, Mr. Rutkowski has no regret at all of being a teacher. “I just am sorry I have had to make so many mistakes in my 41 years of teaching,” he says, “But hey…. I learned from those mistakes. People like Mr. Kaplan, Mr. Saggerson, and Dr. Shine helped me learn.” Mr. Rutkowski encourages his students should continue playing their instrument because in the future because you will “hear music for the rest of your live, and will continue to be reminded of times in your younger days when you hear familiar songs and symphonies.”
Writer '20
Music has always been a wonderful opportunity to express oneself and do what one loves. Fortunately at Great Neck North High School, there is a great teacher who encourages many students to feel the same about music as him. Mr. Rutkowski has been a teacher at Great Neck North High for many years, and has influenced countless students through music. “Playing an instruments requires so much dedication,” Mr. Rutkowski says, “It forces you to teach you muscles and mind to do difficult things.” However, the reward greatly outweighs the work because what musicians make by playing with their instrument will “stir the emotions and intellect of all who listen to you play.”
When he was younger, Mr. Rutkowski focused his first goal on trying out compositions during high school, becoming a composer, and then a concert clarinetist. However, at the age of 30, he soon found the value of being a teacher through teaching at a high school, and falling in love with the idea of helping young people learn to love music. “I love being with young people every single day who are eager to learn about my favorite subject,” says Mr. Rutkowski.
Mr. Rutkowski’s love for music came from the influence of many people. His father was the first person to teach him and his brother how to play jazz and pop songs for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Then later on, his influence came from his middle school band teachers, Al Longo and James Tull, followed by his high school band teachers, Larry Sobol and Fred Belec. Even at North High School, the current administration -Mr. Kaplan and Mr. Saggerson- and former administration -Mr. Shine and Ms. Sanders- have greatly affected Mr. Rutkowski.
No one has a greater respect and dedication for music than Mr. Rutkowski. Throughout the years, many students have been influenced by his teachings and have grown to love music too. In addition, Mr. Rutkowski has no regret at all of being a teacher. “I just am sorry I have had to make so many mistakes in my 41 years of teaching,” he says, “But hey…. I learned from those mistakes. People like Mr. Kaplan, Mr. Saggerson, and Dr. Shine helped me learn.” Mr. Rutkowski encourages his students should continue playing their instrument because in the future because you will “hear music for the rest of your live, and will continue to be reminded of times in your younger days when you hear familiar songs and symphonies.”