Killian Senior High School is one of the oldest in Miami-Dade County, a legacy school. So when a veteran faculty member says Amaya Fife might be the best student ever produced at Killian, it’s the highest of praise.
“She’s a great student, she’s an incredible leader, she’s charismatic, she is giving, altruistic, No. 1, it’s no exaggeration,” said Mark Barnett, the activities director, who has been at the school for 32 years.
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Amaya is the type of student who is always pushing herself to not just succeed but to excel.
“There’s something in me that always wants to be the best, I want to do my best just for validation for myself, I don’t feel a need to prove it to others, I just wanna be the best Amaya I can be,” Amaya said about her work ethic and personal philosophy.
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She is ranked first in her class — she has straight A's and is taking the hardest courses available, so her GPA is well above 5.0. Amaya has earned a Cambridge diploma with distinction, she is the senior class president, the National Honor Society president, and she leads or is a member of several other clubs as well.
Amaya’s secret sauce is time management, but also, the company she keeps.
“I definitely surround myself with more responsible students and sometimes I see other people and I kind of give ‘em a little side-eye because I don’t know what they’re doing or why they’re so irresponsible, but I surround myself with good people, my friends are good people,” Amaya said.
“And then on top of that, she’s like this walking encyclopedia, like, you can ask her anything and she’s like, oh yeah, let me work it out for you real quick,” said classmate Leila Nua.
“I learn things from them, I’m sure they learn things from me, so it’s a balance between us, it’s a mutual relationship,” Amaya said about her circle of friends.
It’s one thing to be academically brilliant in every class, it’s another thing to have a quality that Amaya possesses which might be more important in the fractured times in which we live: she cares, about everybody.
“So I think it’s really hard to describe Amaya without using the word selfless,” said Marian Rodriguez, one of Amaya’s classmates.
“She makes it a point always to make people feel included, when we all hang out as groups and she notices people that aren’t part of any kind of group, she invites them over and we can all have a good time and suddenly someone who didn’t have any friends before has a whole group because Amaya decided to bring them in,” Leila added.
So what does Amaya see in her future?
“I’ve always had an affinity for space, I love everything out there, so I want to help find new ways for human sustainability outside the planet,” she said, explaining that she wants to double major in aerospace and biomedical engineering.
She just wants to save the world. The funny thing is, that ambition doesn’t seem unattainable for Amaya Fife.
