Alex Vertosnik '16 attends United States Naval Academy Summer Seminar

VASJ senior Alex Vertosnik was 11 years old when he set his mind on joining the United States Naval Academy after graduation. And he knows exactly what he wants to do after he enters.

“I want to serve on a nuclear submarine,” Alex says. “It’s a dream. A passion, I guess. It is my goal in life.”

His passion to one day serve on a submarine was ignited when his dad, a Navy veteran, took him to visit the USS Cod Submarine Memorial and Museum six years ago. He has been volunteering there ever since.

“It is very prestigious to get the qualifications to serve on a submarine and I want to earn it,” Alex says.

He has been a frequent visitor of the U.S. Naval Academy’s website over the last six years, searching for information that would help him achieve his goal of entering the Academy.

It was his visits to their site that led him to attend two summer programs there -- a STEM program after his freshman year and more recently, the Summer Seminar this June.

The selection process for the Summer Seminar is competitive and is based on academic performance, extracurricular achievement and someone with demonstrated leadership potential, positive attitude, self-disciplined, and of good moral character.

Alex was relieved when he received his notification that he had been accepted to attend. But he was nervous, too. Not about traveling to Maryland for the Summer Seminar or meeting new people but about what the experience might mean for the goal he set for himself over six years ago.

“I was nervous about whether or not it was going to kill my desire to go there. Whether or not I would actually like it,” says Alex. It was the physical demands he was most nervous about.

“[The seminar] is only a fraction of how hard they push you at the actual Naval Academy and I was worried that fraction might push me away and make me not want to do it,” he says. “But it didn’t. It only made me want to do it more.”

During the six-day session, participants are completely immersed into the culture of the Academy. Alex and his peers lived in Bancroft Hall (the dormitory in which all Academy midshipmen live), ate in the dining hall, participated in academic and leadership workshops and experienced a variety of other activities on the campus including completing the Candidate Fitness Assessment and C-trails (endurance courses).

He was surprised by how far he was able to push himself physically with the encouragement of his peers.

“It’s a different atmosphere to work with people who have the same amount of ambition as you,” says Alex. “When people are willing to work that hard it makes you willing to push yourself that hard, too.”

Alex has been challenging himself academically from the moment he entered the Viking Village.

Throughout his time at VASJ he has taken AP Chemistry, Honors Chemistry, Honors Geometry, Honors Algebra, Honors Biology, Engineering I & II and VASJ’s double/double math (a special upper level math class where students are offered the opportunity to take a double period of math to earn a full credit of Honors Algebra 2/Trigonometry and a full credit of Pre-Calculus combined with up to three college credits from Notre Dame College under the College Credit Plus program).

He is not letting himself off easy during his senior year. He will be juggling Honors Physics (the highest physics course offered at VASJ), AP Government and Engineering III along with his other classes.

Alex is also involved in extracurricular activities as a member of VASJ’s Tech Club/AV Crew, Drama Club Stage Crew, the Robotics Team and Philosophy Club as well as being a Boy Scout with plans to complete his Eagle Scout requirements very soon.

It has not been easy for Alex to take every advanced science and math course VASJ has to offer but as a result of pushing himself academically, he feels well prepared to major in chemical or mechanical engineering in college -- hopefully at the United States Naval Academy.

He still has some work to do before his application to the Academy is complete. He needs to obtain a nomination from a senator or congressman to accompany his application. He is also working toward completing his Eagle Scout. Juggling all of that while also keeping his grades up will be challenging. And that is exactly why he wants to do it.

“I like choosing the hard road,” Alex says. “Choosing the hardest school to get through academics-wise would be prestigious. It would feel great to know that I achieved something like that.”