The prompt for the junior thesis paper was to pick a portion of your life and write about it. It was about “my life, starting freshman year until that point.”

Niamh Murphy passed it in. It was 106 pages long.

When asked why she would go so far for one essay, she says, “I don’t know … competitive nature I guess.”

Niamh, a member of Watertown High’s graduating Class of 2021, says her essay consisted of experiences from her freshman year of high school. She described the essay as “arguably just one big rant.”

When asked what her favorite part of the essay was Niamh says “probably talking about my new best friend,” who is fellow classmate Emily Azevedo, who helped Niamh through her difficult freshman year.

Niamh’s teacher, Will MacLaughlin, told her that the record for the longest junior thesis paper was 99 pages. She told him she would beat it.

Niamh said if she had more time to write the essay, it would have been longer. She said she had five months to write her paper, and the minimum amount of pages required was 12.

How was she able to write an extra 80 pages in those five months?

“Sleep was something I did not much of,” she says.

In her time at WHS, Niamh participated in several extracurricular activities, including being on two swim teams, doing both indoor and outdoor track, participating in Keystone (a community service activity), as well as juggling four jobs.

She managed to continue all of these extracurriculars, while balancing her school work. When asked about the current school year, Niamh described it as “stressful just trying to keep up while not being in the building.”

When asked about her plans for the fall, Niamh says she will be attending Simmons University and plans on getting her doctorate in physical therapy.

This year, she has had to write a senior thesis paper. The paper totaled around eight pages long.

Niamh says she received a pretty good grade on it, though she says, “it was not as impressive as my memoir.”

–June 5, 2021–