'I'll Miss the Familiar Faces'

's commencement will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday. This year's seniors represent the Quaker-founded school's 226th graduating class.

Moorestown Patch will profile five seniors—what they've done, where they're going and what they'll miss—over the next several days leading up to the graduation ceremony.

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Name: Gabe Hege

Age: 18

Activities: Robotics, Soccer, Theater Technical Crew, Science Olympiad, Lacrosse

College: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Intended Major: Chemical Engineering, focusing on renewable energy

Career Interest: Either researching in a lab that would be working on those solutions, or actually running a company that would work on future solutions.

Fondest Memory from MFS: I’ve been here for 14 years. I’m what they call an “original.” So my favorite memory is actually from second grade. The teacher in second grade knows the violin, so she makes it mandatory that every student learns to play the violin. So if you’ve been here since second grade, you know how to play the violin. You may not know now, but it’s like riding a bike. At one point, you knew … And then one cool project I liked (from second grade), we had to build a castle. Second grade was awesome. That was a great year. So basically we could do whatever we wanted in that project. She gave us some parameters, like sizes and stuff. But the sky’s the limit on what we could do with this castle. And you could let your creativity run … So traditional castles go up. So I made a castle that was designed to go under the ground.

Most Important Thing You Learned at MFS: To think critically and to question. They actually ask for your opinion. The teachers ask for your opinion … And they would ask us to think critically and to question. When I would go to summer programs with other students from other schools, I found that I had an edge because I was already conditioned to think critically, to question.

What You’ll Miss Most: I’ll miss the familiar faces. Being here for 14 years, you meet people, and then you meet people you don’t even know you met. And they just come up to you, cause they just know your name, cause you’ve been here for so long … Just sort of having that network of people who actually know you on a personal level; they know your likes, dislikes, what you’re interested in, what you’re not interested in.

What You’ll Miss Least: 50 cents for a cookie. What is that all about? Or charging you for the butter and cream cheese for the bagel. The cafeteria food is good food, but you pay 50 cents for a cookie, 25 cents for cream cheese.

Check back tomorrow for the third of our Moorestown Friends senior profiles. Visit our Senior Snapshots page to read more profiles of Moorestown 2012 graduates.