Yale fanatic, Maximilian Peters with above a 4.2 GPA amazes his peers with his successful academic career, his love for politics and his love for his mother country, Poland.

Peters was born in Sioux Falls but after visiting his family in Poland and living there for a year, he became fluent in Polish. When Peters began his academic career, he had a hard time communicating with his peers. After going through various speech classes to learn English, Peters’s Polish accent still remained. Although learning English was a very rigorous process, it all paid off and Peters now has a larger vocabulary than the average high school student.

“I heard mostly Polish, not English and technically my native language is Polish. That’s how I got my accent. It used to be a lot thicker than it is right now because I used to speak my native language, which makes sense,” said Peters.

When Peters was young, he went to visit his family in Poland with his mother. After finding out they had the wrong paper work they were not allowed back in the country until a year later. During this year Peters spoke and heard only Polish. Once Peters began elementary school, his parents thought it was best if he stop speaking Polish due to the fact that 80 percent of his English was indecipherable. Although Peters had to go through various speech classes, his accent still remains. Peters no longer comprehends Polish and can no longer speak the language but he still wishes he could.

“Before kindergarten my parents were getting concerned because I had a really thick accent when I was speaking English. They had me tested before I went to school to make sure everything was okay,” said Peters.

Peters continues to work hard and is aware that other students may want to compete with him because of his GPA, but he believes that it is best to work hard at all times and not just because someone wants to compete. Peters enjoys school and dedicates most of his time studying or working on debate. Peters’ many interests include politics, Yale and of course Young Progressives Club that meets at LHS every Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

“I really haven’t decided what college I’m going to go to. One school that I’m looking at right now that looks really appealing is McAllester College. And that has a focus on the world and international affairs,” said Peters.

In the future Peters hopes to get into Yale and do something politics related, although he is still not entirely sure. For now Peters will continue to work hard while also expressing his love for Poland and politics.

“It would be very nice if I got into Yale, and I would not be angry if I got an acceptance letter from Yale. There are a lot of good places out there and a lot of good people out there. It’s not like everything revolves around one thing,” said Peters.