By Alex Ross
For the Item
Twin sisters Rebecca and Samantha Truong may look alike, but their lives are anything but, and about to become even more so.
The recent graduates of Peabody Veterans Memorial High School (PVMHS) are headed to college in the fall, albeit to two different colleges to study two different majors under two different sets of circumstances.
While Sam is set to begin dropping off her belongings at Tufts University in Medford on Friday, Rebecca expected to be packing her bags to head to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Instead, Rebecca’s new dorm room is her high school bedroom, and Sam is the one moving to campus, even with the recent uptick in positive COVID-19 cases in Medford and neighboring Somerville.
Sam is a biology major with dreams of becoming a pediatrician. According to Tufts’ website, the university plans to reopen in a hybrid format. Lectures with more than 50 people will not be held in person. However, Sam believes she’ll be able to physically attend her smaller classes. The irony is, she initially didn’t think she wanted to go to Tufts at all.
“At first, my mom wanted me to apply, and I wanted nothing to do with Tufts,” Sam said. “But, then I went to the overnight program, and the people were so cool. I liked the environment and what they did there.”
Rebecca, a chemistry major, is faced with a different dilemma. Though she says Georgetown’s original plan was to welcome students back to campus in as many single dorm rooms as possible, the university has since reversed its position. As a member of the incoming freshman class, Rebecca will be remote for the foreseeable future. Now, the challenge becomes majoring in chemistry from her home.
“Instead of going into the lab and doing the hands-on stuff, we’re going to watch videos or demonstrations of stuff, and then we have to analyze the data,” she explained. “It’s basically the lab without the fun stuff.”
In her time as an upperclassman at PVMHS, Rebecca found her love for chemistry and ventured off as far into the field of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) her high school would allow. In fact, she pushed STEM, and the rest of the academic envelope further than anyone of her classmates — she was No. 1 in a class of more than three hundred.
In the valedictory address she delivered during Peabody High’s socially distanced graduation ceremony on Aug. 1, Rebecca aimed for a message of optimism.
“My theme was to inspire greatness, and that was a little bit hard with the whole year we had,” she said. “But I tried to focus less on the specific events and more looking forward to how [we can] improve.”
Sam, ranked fifth in her graduating class, echoed her sister’s sentiment regarding the future. “I’m definitely looking forward to meeting new people and not having to worry about ‘Am I putting myself in danger? Am I putting others in danger?’ You have to go out with a lot of caution these days.” she said. “I miss the kind of freedom we took for granted before.”
It’s no surprise that the sisters hold similar world views. Fueled by a shared competitive drive, Rebecca and Sam say they excelled in school thanks to each other. They represent different sides of the same coin. Between the two, the array of prospective colleges and universities considered, but not chosen, included Brandeis, Colby, Wesleyan, Yale, and Boston University. The only school considered by both girls was UMass Amherst.
Though they may be two people, they say there is always a common understanding between them. Looking back, the sisters cited extracurricular activities as their favorite high school memories. For Rebecca, it was the tennis team. For Sam, it was a tossup between track and band, where she played the flute.
“There’s sort of a middle ground, but most of the time we like different branches of the same things. It’s similar but not the same,” they said.
It’s the yin and yang between chemistry and biology, first and fifth, track and tennis, improving the future without taking it for granted. Don’t be surprised to see Rebecca and Sam dividing and conquering whatever life throws their way.
