Senior of the Week: Priya Nwakanma

By EMILIA KNIESTEDT and EMI LEVINE

After the first snow of the season, senior Priya Nwakanma sits on the Arthur Seawall memorial behind Hoyt Hall. Shivering and bundled up, she reaches into her bag and pulls out a small notebook and pen, and begins writing.

Hailing from Orlando, Florida, Nwakanma can be seen in a number of places around Exeter. Whether it’s Mock Trial meetings in the basement of Ewald, catching up on her readings in the Latin study, or rehearsing on the stage of Goel, Nwakanma lights up any place she enters.

Nwakanma originally did not plan to come to Exeter. “I had never heard of Exeter before the application season,” she said. “My friend, Bronwyn, was applying to some of the schools I was applying to, mostly Quaker schools, and she was like, ‘Have you heard of Exeter?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ and she’s like, ‘You should apply.’ So I looked into it.”

One thing that Nwakanma prioritized with her Exeter experience was inclusivity, especially for young Black girls. “Coming to Exeter was kind of like a shock to the system because you’re surrounded by people who are so different from you, all the time,” she said. “There’s a difference between being discriminated against and just not being considered at all. I think a lot of times when policy changes are made or when people are talking about the situations on campus, Black students are not considered, because white people are seen as the default on campus. Becoming involved in that community has been important just to stay sane because if I didn’t make the friends I’ve made and know the people I know, I would not be able to continue to function,” she said.

Another facet of her life that is essential to her well being is writing. Nwakanma views her writing as “not something I do for any other reason except that I have to.”

“It’s a form of self expression, but not in the way that I use it to say what I can’t normally say, which I do do, but not voluntarily. Things will become stuck in me, and then I will just have to do something about it, and usually that thing is to write about it. And I never think that I have stories to tell until I start writing them,” she added.

Nwakanma uses her passion for writing to explore her identity. “I think she leaves behind a legacy of very powerful Black artistry,” senior Ki Odums said. “A lot of the nature of her writing surrounds identity in a way that a lot of Black young people on this campus don’t get to appreciate or maybe command in the way she does.”

The art of writing has always been in Nwakanma’s life. “My dad is a poet, and I actually remember my first poem. I remember it very vividly. I was in my bunk bed that I shared with my brother, because we were small enough that it was still cool. I was learning to write and I was like, ‘I have the best idea: roses are red, violets are blue, poop is brown, and I am too.’ I was very profound. So, you know, I guess I’ve always kind of spoken my truth.”

Many of Nwakanma’s other interests have stemmed from her love of writing and language, like her love for Shakespeare and theater. “For me, theater is about language. I had done theater before Exeter, but I did not think I was going to continue because, this sounds insane, but I had done musicals in middle school to fit in,” she said. “But when I do theater now, it’s about the words for me. I got the chance to be in The Wolves last winter, and that is such a wonderfully written play. I think for me it’s about communication. It’s the chance to interpret somebody else’s words into something that makes sense,” she said.

“The language of Shakespeare and in general, any theater that I decide to do, is so intentional because you interpret it by speaking it. And I think a lot of writing, especially slam poetry, is the way words sound and the way that changes the meaning of them,” Nwakanma added.

This intentionality was a large part of what drew her to the study of Latin. “The first part of Latin is getting to see how languages are constructed. I think the Latin curriculum at Exeter is specifically centered around understanding how to put a language together, which is very helpful in terms of learning, but also just very interesting in terms of understanding languages that you already speak,” she said.

One thing that deepened Nwakanma’s understanding of language and purpose was combining Latin and poetry. “I started to read poetry in Latin and started thinking about rhetorical devices. It helped me understand the sound and the movement of words and how they shape the meaning of the world around you,” she said. “I think that putting intention behind everything that you write reflects what’s important to you in ways that you don’t even know until you read it.”

It is Nwakanma’s deeply reflective and kind presence that leaves an impact on everybody who has the gift of knowing her. Whether it is in her dorm, her classes, the Mock Trial team, or anywhere else, her influence and legacy are evident.

With Nwakanma’s door open for anybody who needs to talk, senior Sanisha Mahendra-Rajah shared her appreciation for her caring presence in the dorm. “She has just become such a wise soul. I always go to her for advice. She always has a way of making me look at a situation and see something new that I hadn’t seen before. Especially in her relationships with underclassmen and in the way that people look to her when they need guidance, you can truly see the mentorship bonds that she’s built. I think everyone who knows her loves her because, how can you not love Priya?”

Senior Ale Murat agreed. “Within the dorm, she is leaving a legacy of being ‘that senior’ for a lot of people. She’s that sort of person that you visualize and you say to yourself, ‘This is the kind of senior that I aspire to be one day.’”

Odums noted the growth in Nwakanma’s confidence that allowed her to become such a presence. “Our prep year, people sort of ascribed her wittiness and her creativity to being almost ditzy or whimsical, like manic pixie, if you will. But I think Priya has embraced that witty creative edge in a way that makes her presence a powerful and dominating one,” they said.

When asked to describe Nwakanma in two words, New Hall dorm head and History Instructor Dr. Samuels said “Chaotic joy. You never really know where your interaction is gonna go, but it will leave you happy afterwards nonetheless. She’s one of those students who in four years, as we’re all sitting around the New Hall common room, we’ll be talking about this hallowed figure of the legendary Priya. She’s one of these figures that’s going to become somewhat larger than life as she moves on and does amazing things outside of Exeter.”

Mahendra-Rajah shared similar sentiments. “She’ll be seen as the kind of person that you wish you could know because, even in her stories, she’s so vibrant and full of life.”

Nwakanma reflected on her overall Exeter experience. “If I had gone to the school I was zoned for, I know exactly what kind of person I would be, which is the kind of person that I had always been. I would have the same friends and I would probably still be doing musicals and I would never have taken the chance to try new things or talk to new people,” she said.

“There are just so many things that I love that I never could have loved if I hadn’t come to Exeter. There are so many people I love that I never could have loved if I hadn’t come here. And because of coming to Exeter, I think I’m a person who does not know who she will be in the next four years, which is really exciting to me.”