Junior Max Kesselheim’s Research and Writing Featured in The Hill

One of Roxbury Latin’s goals is to foster a community of “accomplished generalists.” In other words, it encourages boys to be passionate about and involved in many different things. A terrific example of this is Class II student Max Kesselheim, whose love of both politics and humor informed the research behind his article “How funny will Kamala Harris be?” which was picked up and posted by political news outlet The Hill.

The variety of opportunities at RL has allowed Max to explore outlets for his love of humor, including writing funny articles for the literary magazine The Forum and the school newspaper The Tripod, acting in and stage-directing comedies through the drama program, and participating in the humor-catered sector of the Debate Club. Yet, like most RL boys, there was something else that piqued his interest: U.S. politics.

“I have been starting to increase my political intake as this election gets closer, because of the impact it could have on the present and the future of our country,” says Max. Thus, the question arose: How could he explore these topics of interest simultaneously? The answer: the RL Connected internship program. While working with Assistant Head of School Tom Guden, who facilitates the program, Max learned he could spend his summer conducting research.

Over the summer, Max created and implemented a dedicated schedule and method to obtain the data necessary to write the article. “I set up a coding scheme… lists of the context, type, and intended outcome of each joke,” he said. He used this system every Wednesday and Thursday night when watching YouTube videos of the past 28 Presidential State of the Union addresses, spanning seven presidential terms and five presidents. With the data collected and a resulting article crafted, Max looked for a tangible way to highlight the work and time spent over the summer as the end of August drew near.

When selecting the right place to submit his article, he looked for key things like the rapid processing of an online platform instead of print, the legitimacy of the news outlet, and the accessibility for someone like him, a high school student in Boston, to contribute. “I came across The Hill because it has an online [component], is well known, is based in D.C., and accepts external op-ed submissions.” After a conversation and some suggested changes from one of the editors at The Hill, Max learned his article would be published the morning after he submitted his final edits! “It was exciting; I showed it to a bunch of my family members… I sent it to a bunch of teachers” (Mr. Beam, Mr. Smith, Mr. Sokol, and Dr. Schaffer, to name a few). 

Aside from the incredible opportunity and memorable achievement, a key takeaway proved to be the realizability of the task. “I want to highlight how doable something like this is… it’s really just the fact that two of my main interests could be combined, and I found a way to combine them.”

Read Max’s article published in The Hill on August 29, 2024.