Kelsey Randhawa
By Victoria R. Ballengee
North Hardin High School

Kelsey Randhawa loves writing almost anything, reading almost everything and traveling almost everywhere.
Randhawa, 17, is a senior at Dunbar High School in Lexington. She runs track and cross-country for her school, and is involved in her school newspaper.
Her love for writing and her ambition has led her far into journalism. She has no specific job for her school’s newspaper but said she enjoys writing feature stories the most.
“It’s really neat to see different perspectives on what people say,” Randhawa said.
Randhawa said she had a feature story win first place in a state competition before she actually went into journalism.
Not only does she have a passion for writing, Randhawa has considerable interest in science. She is currently working on a research project under the direction of Dr. Sharon Walsh, the director of the Center of Drug and Alcohol Research at the University of Kentucky. Randhawa’s school uses block scheduling which allows her to have a longer lunch period, and she usually spends her lunch period at the research facility in the Robert Straus Building at UK.
Randhawa is working on a project that examines the behavioral effects after users consume different amounts of OxyContin, or oxycodone when snorted or shot in a vein.
“I really try to balance my interests,” Randhawa said. “I’m really focused in the different arts and sciences.”
Randhawa said she is also an avid reader. Some of her favorite authors are J.K. Rowling, James Patterson, Dave Barry, or anyone who writes fantasy stories. She said reading “Lord of the Rings” helped her vocabulary, so she read book after book.
“I think reading definitely helps with your writing. All good writers are readers,” Randhawa said.
Randhawa said she loves traveling internationally. She’s gone to places like France, Spain, India and England. She said it helped her to be more diverse, which helped her improve her writing and communication skills.
“It gave me an interesting topic to talk about when I had to write a memoir, like seeing the poverty in front of me that tore me,” Randhawa said.
Randhawa, who will graduate in May 2011, has visited or plans to visit a handful of liberal arts colleges – the University of Chicago, Northwestern, Harvard,  Boston College, Stanford and Washington University in St. Louis.
She said it gives her a broad viewpoint on different subjects, and she doesn’t want to stay in one major for the long run. If anyone were to ask her what she’s majoring in, major she’s in, she would answer, “Undecided.”
The reason she chooses to not stick to one major is because she wants to juggle a few majors like law, journalism and psychology. Randhawa said she wants to try out all of them and see what evolves from there.
“I don’t want to get too locked up on one thing and end up hating on my job later.”