Editor’s Note: With students in Maryland heading back to school next week, Baltimore Fishbowl is taking a look at the new school year through the eyes of a student. Here’s a profile of Isabella Akilo, entering her junior year at Baltimore City College.
It might not yet be September, but Isabella Akilo is already planning her Halloween costume.
Of course, Akilo, a rising junior at Baltimore City College, also has school on her mind, with classes resuming soon. And how could she not? Teachers are experiencing sky-high stress levels and burnout, and students, particularly among disadvantaged groups, are facing crisis levels of anxiety, depression, and trauma in and out of the classroom.
One potential way of coping: Going as iCarly’s T-Bo, the bandana-clad vendor of bagels, pickles, and other foods on a stick.
It is this sort of versatility (as well as faux locs) that Akilo, 16, has in common with the Groovy Smoothie manager. In other words, Akilo is a jack of all trades, which, as the complete saying goes, is better than being a master of one. She makes a point of trying a new club each year, and is looking forward to joining mock trial.
Not only is she branching out, she’s also tending to firmly planted roots in the theater group, where she does stage crew; the guitar club, where she learned how to play the instrument; the board games club, which she said is “a nice way to relax after a long day.” She’s also involved with the nonprofits Wide Angle Youth Media and Writers in Baltimore Schools. She likes to stay busy, to say the least.
It is this garden of trees that she has cultivated that she hopes will sustain her as she takes nine International Baccalaureate courses and standardized tests, and otherwise begins auditioning for college admissions this upcoming year.
“Not gonna lie, school can get really stressful,” she said. “I’m trying to keep a level head and enjoy my year as best I can.”
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At the beginning of the summer, Akilo took a two-week trip to Maine to visit family. She’ll be holding this peaceful and joyful period closely. “Even if I’m stressed out and worried about the future, I’ll have that comforting memory to calm me,” she said.
She enjoyed New England so much that she’s thinking of going there for college. She’s also looking at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The main thing is that she wants to spread her wings and fly—that is to say, she doesn’t want to be too close to home.
To realize those dreams, “I need my GPA to stay where it is, if not higher,” she said.
And, not that she’ll have much trouble with this, but she’ll need to keep up with her extracurriculars. Another one she is part of is the Black Student Union, which has about two dozen members who meet every week for roundtable conversations about African-American people, history, and culture. “It’s a really fun club; it opens your mind and allows you to think more broadly about the things that happen around us,” said Akilo, who joined the club last year after performing at their culture fair, and will determine weekly topics, host events, and more as junior year leader.
One topic Akilo appreciated the opportunity to discuss was childhood obesity in Black communities in Baltimore and across the country. She alluded to how decades of racist policies have consigned Black families to neighborhoods where they are denied fresh and healthy food options, among other basic necessities. In 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future reported that around a quarter of Baltimoreans experience food insecurity—in part because of the financial costs of discriminatory employment and educational systems, which also impede access to good health insurance.
Perhaps Akilo will report on such structural inequities in her potential future career as a journalist. (She also might pursue something related to languages; she speaks fluent Mandarin and takes Spanish.) She often walks around school with a camcorder. “I’ll have fake interviews with people—not necessarily to bother them, but to see how they’re feeling, just small check-ups,” she said. “People tend to enjoy it.”
She also likes to take Polaroid pictures of her peers and post them on an Instagram account she runs. At first it was friends and then, in typical Akilo fashion, she branched out. “People were coming up to me and saying, ‘Oh my God, I want my picture taken,’ so I was like, ‘Okay,’” she said.
She describes herself as a “very extroverted” person, and is also considering a run for class president (a role she held her freshman year).
Regardless of what comes Akilo’s way, she hopes that she “takes time during the year to be grateful and thankful.”
