I recently interviewed Tommy McCoy, NA’13, whose name still lives on in many of the classrooms at NASH. He was an extraordinarily accomplished student, and every few months he gains the notice of the faculty by publishing a Sunday crossword puzzle in The New York Times. Tommy studied linguistics at Yale and is currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in computational linguistics through the university’s Cognitive Science Department.

We all have our own fond memories from our long career as NA students. What are some of your favorites, or most striking?

When I was at elementary school at Bradford Woods, there was an old log cabin in front of the school we weren’t allowed to go into due to safety reasons. So for my whole class, it was an object of great intrigue. But on the last day of 5th grade, they opened the cabin and we all got to go in, so it was really cool to compare the real thing to what we imagined. Another memorable moment was in middle school, where I was running a 4-mile relay. I finished in what I thought was world record time, but I didn’t realize I ran only three laps. Later on, in high school, finding out I had qualified for the International Linguistics Olympiad and performing well at the actual event was a high point in my NA career.

How did you handle yourself so well on the academic side, given your long list of extracurriculars? What were you interested in? What were your aspirations beyond high school?

I grew up wanting to make an impact on the world, probably through academia. But to be honest, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do in college, because I liked so many subjects. Math always gave me definite, logical answers, biology showed me just how crazy life was, and English made me think deeper about our world. In fact, I was juggling 5-6 majors and multiple schools until the very last minute. I finally decided on a linguistics major at Yale, because I saw it as a compromise between STEM fields and the humanities, and Yale has really good departments in all subject areas, as compared to other, more specialized schools. About juggling high school life — I was always just a really motivated high schooler, and my family was extremely supportive, never pushy and always ready to help. My older sisters encouraged me to try new things and are also responsible for introducing me to linguistics.

Most of us are very unfamiliar with linguistics beyond a dictionary definition. Tell us more about what linguists do, and how they benefit society.

Linguistics is the study of the structure of language, and how it’s represented in the human mind. It’s an extremely broad field, ranging from the study of sound waves, a subtopic of physics, to philosophy of how language was acquired, and similar questions. I was first introduced to linguistics by my sister in the form of high school word puzzle competitions, but it stretches so much further than that. I’m currently focused on computational linguistics, which is a much more mathematical study, which involves writing proofs about and finding definite patterns in the structure of languages. I’m also very interested in sign language, which is often overlooked by the general populace. Did you know that there are around 300 sign languages, and people even sign in their sleep, much like we sleep-talk? Perhaps the most impactful thing I’ve done so far is to record a native Australian language with only three remaining speakers. We Skyped and interviewed them, ensuring the survival of the language in written record for the future. This is extremely important, because it makes us able to preserve the culture for the future.

Is there any advice you want to give to current NA students? What have you taken away from NA that is important in your life?

Mr. Mohr said something to my class towards the end of senior year that still sticks with me: “The person you’re being is the person you’re going to be for the rest of your life. Keep your habits in mind, and make good new ones.” This really helped me early on in college to break an ice cream addiction. I LOVE ice cream, and when I realized I could have ice cream every day in college, I did. That is, until I remembered Mr. Mohr’s advice, and decided that my long-term health would be better off without the daily dairy. Something else that inspires me is something Mr. Morris, my English teacher, told me: “Whatever you do when you grow up, write a book.” I definitely want to write a book when I grow up more, and the thought of doing so is a nice motivator. I would like to encourage students to find something you’re interested in, and not something you’re pressured into doing. There is a lot of choice in college, and you will fare a lot better by doing something you love.