Orion Bloomfield

Orion Bloomfield. Football Captain. Mock Trial President. Dance Company Soloist. Meat Club Co-head. In another universe, this might be Bloomfield’s resume. A more accurate description might be from his girlfriend, senior Lucy Gilchrist: “Orion Bloomfield is a big dork with hair like a giant wedge of cheese.”

Bloomfield was not the enthusiastic Exonian he is today when he first toured the campus. He recalls that “A kid came up to me and said, ‘Do not come here, this place is hell on Earth.’ And then, once I heard that, I knew that this was exactly the place I wanted to be.”

This statement is only partially sarcastic. Bloomfield elaborated: “[Exeter] is the toughest place in the world. You come here to die a little bit, but the people you meet along the way are really interested in what they’re doing … That excites me a lot.”

Bloomfield, according to his own description, was not always the “academic weapon” he’s reputed to be today. In middle school, he went to a specialized choir school that is now closed, the American Boychoir School (ABS). “In my last couple of years of middle school, we did school in the gym of a summer camp. Basically the whole school was there, all the classes, everything. We ate food there. I learned everything I know about academics here.”

But he says that his experience at ABS was vital to his development and learning. “I went to Korea and France as a sixth grader,” he said. “But it was less about the [actual] places. We were in very close contact with the communities there because we did not have the money to go through hotel systems or anything like that … I had a lot of interesting conversations with those people.”

His experience as a talented singer has translated into him being bossy in choir—or as he would call it, “being a leader.”  “In choir, we have what’s called a moment of correction, which is if the choir messes up something or if a section messes up something the singers have a chance to repair that mistake,” Gilchrist said. “The responsibility of identifying the mistake and identifying how to fix or learn from that mistake usually falls on the shoulders of older members of the choir, but ever since Orion’s been in the choir, he’s been one of the people who singers turn to and asked for improvements.”

Director of Choir Kristopher Johnson described the warmth Bloomfield brings into Concert Choir every day. “Orion is warm and fun-loving while also being an extremely capable singer and outstanding chorister,” he said. “He has a wealth of experience that he leverages positively without ever coming across in any way but enthusiastic and open.”

Orion’s passion in the sciences is well-known to students and teachers alike. Biology Instructor Anne Rankin said, “This fall, Orion has shifted from being my student to my teacher as I begin to figure out how to bring the bioinformatics side of next-generation sequencing to the Exeter biology curriculum.”

Senior Lucy Garberg describes working with him in biology as entertaining as educational. She said that while taking BIO670, a genetics course on fly genes, “He was dumping out my flies but squished them with the bottle. That’s our ongoing joke—he killed my flies. See you in fly heaven!”

Senior Kevin Xu recalls how Orion always looked for an opportunity to sing, especially with his friends. “Orion found a song on Youtube called ‘Christ Cometh to My House and Eats All of My Food.’ It was a choral cover, and he rallied five of his friends and we got together and we learned the piece,” he said. This group later ran to Mr. Johnson’s house and sang the song on his porch. “That was pretty epic.”

But he doesn’t confine himself to exclusively choir or science—he believes in living in the moment. “In the end what [concerns me most about] Exeter is there are a lot of people who casually in some ways just orient their lives in directions towards themselves,” he said. “All the little things. It’s noticeable. That’s exactly who I don’t want to be.”

He also advises, admittedly rather callously, for Exonians to take a step back. “Everyone here takes themselves way too seriously. If your life is going to [stink] here, you’re failing your classes, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Find someone in those situations you can talk to. Find someone who makes you laugh in the most wholesome way. By being scared of a grade here, you’re automatically thinking way too hard.”

Garberg also imitated Orion’s interesting walk. “This is not me being mean about his walk,” she said, standing up and beginning to swing her arms and march her legs, “but his walk is so iconic and so funny. He steps upwards, and it’s joyful, and it’s like wow, Orion just passed.”

Senior Paula-Perez Glassner noted Orion’s stride as well. “You can always tell it’s Orion on the path because he has this saunter in his step,” she said. “He bounces across campus wherever he goes. It’s a very joyful walk, and always brightens my day to see him bouncing along.”

Orion’s quirks, which are self-admitted are not only in the way he walks, but how he speaks as well. “Sometimes I feel like the way I speak is not even English itself. Whenever I talk to someone I’m always thinking of what they would need from it or how they would respond,” he said. “It’s kind of like a probability map, It gets me in very confusing situations where I’m trying to say two million things—which is a lot. You’re going to get a lot of people saying, ‘He’s so **** at talking.’”

Gilchrist considers all of these odd characteristics as what makes Bloomfield the person that he is. “Orion is definitely the biggest dork I know. It’s my favorite thing about him. I think the dorkiness that others perceive him and he labels himself as really relates to his genuine passion for everything,” she said. “He has a genuine joy for living life, and whether he’s in the dorm, in classes, in choir as a leader, or in his tech committees and cybersecurity clubs, he always has a genuine passion for everything, he gives himself entirely.”

Orion ends with a reminder on how to enjoy Exeter. “Find people that mean something to you. If you haven’t done that, then you’re not experiencing Exeter,” he said. “When I look back, I’m not going to remember the grades I get; I’m not going to remember the classes. That is all internal. I will, however, remember the trips to Walgreens with my buds and all the stupid stuff I found myself a part of.”