High school life may seem like a house of cards, waiting to collapse on the weight of the pressure to succeed academically and stack up one’s resume to impress colleges. Others, like Charlie Warren, manage to find strong footing and accomplish key priorities while setting time to just kick back and have a good time. Whether it’s dedicating many years to the Speech and Debate team and Model UN or playing video games and crafting borderline philosophical pieces on the subject in his Wolfpacket column, Warren has mastered the art of holding everything in delicate balance–being fully “in control” and thriving on multiple facets. He has found success in this approach and is now headed to Duke University this upcoming fall.

Warren had many options, but decided to commit to Duke partially due to the familiarity of the university in his family circle.

“Duke’s sort of always been in my family,” Warren said. “There have been a couple of my family members, not immediate family members but cousins, aunts, uncles and the like that have all been to Duke. It’s always kind of been on my mind as I was looking through different colleges and getting to know the ins and outs of their major and their living situations. And I just felt right at the end. I’m a very methodological person, but sometimes when it comes down to making big decisions, my intuition plays a bigger role and just felt right to me.”

Warren is not completely sure what he will major in, but he has placed political science as his likeliest major. He is unsure whether his interest in politics comes from participating in speech in debate for so many years or the reverse. Regardless, it remains the major on the top of his list.

Warren has also explored other aspects of Duke and the east coast outside of his classes and has a lot to look forward to.

“’I’ve been looking on the east coast for awhile,” Warren said. “It’s always kind of been a dream of mine. I’ve been up there a couple of times, not to Duke or North Carolina specifically, but just living somewhere away from home, learning to become a more independent person.”

At Duke, he plans on potentially participating in extracurricular activities from the university, including the American Grand Strategy Club, Model UN, and the speech and debate team, the latter which has won the United States Universities Debating Championship, most recently in 2018.

As Warren looks back on his time at CHS, he is very thankful for his time here and for those who have been there for him. He admits the last four years have flown by very quickly, but it was a memorable time thanks to those who have made it so for him.