Phoebe Karpstein, Bend Tech Academy’s salutatorian, was originally drawn to attending the magnet school because of its medical track. Now that she is set to graduate, Karpstein is excited to pursue a career in healthcare.

Karpstein, 17, was a student at the academy for all four years. In the fall, she will go to the Oregon Institute of Technology to join their EMT program.

She has been interested in medicine since before high school, she said, but it was Bend Tech Academy’s hands-on work, and her teacher Martin Codino who helped her decide which path to take within the wider medical discipline.

“(My teacher) was a chiropractor before he became a teacher. He’s, like, medicine is like not a thing you can always just learn,” she said. “You have to be hands-on. And something I really loved about it is that it was a really good chunk of hands-on stuff. And he did a good job teaching us and he made sure we understood it.”

The wilderness medicine class stuck with Karpstein, and is something she will remember from her high school experience, she said. The class featured practice in advanced first aid and medicine, but in an outdoors scenario.

“If you just have clothes on you, how do we survive off of that and all that stuff?,” she said. “And our final was to go into the middle of nowhere and help save injured people or keep them stable for a while until we can get some help, actual rescue help. And that was an experience that I will never forget. I think it’s what kind of solidified that I wanted to do fast-paced medicine, like emergency medicine.”

She had the same teachers all four years of high school due to the school’s small size, allowing her to build relationships. Just 22 seniors will cross the stage as the Bend Tech Academy Class of 2025. Karpstein said she will miss her teachers and her counselor, citing the latter as being a great listener. Her literature teacher also always made a point of checking in on his students. Those two have left a mark on her, she said.

“We tend to grow and create better connections with them. And they tend to understand us more because we’ve had those four years together. So as you get to know each other’s learning styles and just who we are as people,” she said.

Karpstein originally vied for valedictorian, but came up second.

She advised future seniors: “Live in the moment. I think one thing I’m going to regret about this year is that I got caught up in other things, and I didn’t enjoy it as much. And I felt like if I lived in the moment and enjoyed being a senior instead of worrying about other things, I would have had a better experience in my senior year … It’s an amazing year, and you just don’t want to be stuck in your head all the time.”

Karpstein played basketball, bowled and ran track for Bend High, since Bend Tech Academy doesn’t have its own sports teams.

She was also a peer leader for Sources of Strength, a peer and student-led organization that helps others with mental health struggles by ensuring they know they’re not alone. The program helps connect students with peers, physical activity and family support.

“The staff has been a great community. And I feel like something that I got out of high school is that it’s okay to stumble. It’s okay to have mess-ups. It’s okay to feel out of control,” Karpstein said. “It’s okay to feel lost for a little bit.”

Her high school experience let her realize that she doesn’t always have to be perfect, she said.

“Sometimes I think one of my weaknesses is that I feel like I always have to be strong. I always have to be put together. And at that school, I learned that it’s okay to break down. It’s okay to have a little anxiety attack or whatever it is because the people that I’m surrounded by will care for me and that they love me and they’ll be there every step of the way,” she said. “We’re humans. We’re flawed. We’re supposed to make mistakes. We’re supposed to feel emotions.”