Senior Max Ramirez-Hernandez is a passionate La Salle student.

One thing he wishes to accomplish before graduation is “just trying to see how I can get involved to make the school a better place before I leave,” he said.

Ramirez-Hernandez’s favorite part of La Salle is how small the community is. “It’s really easy to build a strong connection here,” he said. He has made strong connections within the school and it is accurate to say that he is very involved in the community. 

Before coming to La Salle, Ramirez-Hernandez attended St. Ignatius. He chose to attend La Salle because of his sister. Ramirez-Hernandez is quite content with his decision to join the La Salle community due to the wide range of programs offered, many of which he has participated in.

Ramirez-Hernandez is involved in makerspace, the robotics team, the snowboarding team, the Dungeons and Dragons Club, and art.

He is anxious for the snowboarding season to start up again. Although he just started last year, he is ready to take on year two. He truly enjoys a challenge, so this year he is taking AP Government and French 4. However, his fourth year of French has proved to be more challenging than he thought. “Now we’re starting to get into an area of French that I’m just so out of my element that it’s difficult to comprehend even simple sentences,” Ramirez-Hernandez said.

To Ramirez-Hernandez, being a part of the Dungeons and Dragons Club is more than just playing a game. His favorite extracurricular never fails to inspire him. “It just allows you to pick a character that expresses yourself and being able to do the things that you want,” he said.

Another passion of Ramirez-Hernandez’s is creating art. His first art class project won an honorable mention. His piece was a charcoal painting of a photograph taken in his old home in Vancouver. He would describe this as his proudest accomplishment. “I usually don’t really like to give myself compliments,” he said. “Especially on my art skills.”

His favorite La Salle memories are all those moments spent hanging around in the makerspace. Ramirez-Hernandez’s favorite class is Ms. Carie Coleman’s Advanced Thinking and Design class. “Being able to enact certain solutions to see if it solves the problem is a really valuable skill for anyone to have,” he said.

Outside of La Salle, he enjoys animation and storytelling. “Being able to express yourself, being able to take an idea from your head, and make it come alive on a piece of paper or a screen is just such an invigorating experience for me,” Ramirez-Hernandez said. He has graduated from animating on sticky notes to animating on his computer. He tells stories through his animations and has been working on some small series.

One piece of advice Ramirez-Hernandez would give to anyone in need of it is, “I feel like people have said this before but never give in without a fight,” he said.

Correction: Nov. 17, 2022

A previous version of this article said that Max is currently in French 3, when he is actually in French 4.