Second in a series of blog posts highlighting recent high school grads and rising high school seniors who are going to change the world.

Kylie Krawulski knew she was going to be an engineer.

She has always loved math, and she found physics came pretty easy to her. She loved being outside hiking and camping with Girl Scouts growing up.

But senior year, taking an environmental science class at Lincoln-Way Central her senior year really pushed her in the direction of wanting to solve energy issues. Kylie will be attending Valparaiso University next semester to study environmental engineering.

The environmental science class got her outdoors quite a bit, Kylie said. It gave her an introduction to the issues she is looking forward to studying at Valpo, where the environmental engineering curriculum is brand new.

During senior year, when she was not meeting up once a month with classmates to cut down invasive species at a prairie across the street from Central, Kylie stayed active in her fourth year in marching band playing clarinet. As a freshman, she played first for the Central marching band, before joining Lincoln-Way’s new combined Marching Band just before her sophomore year.  It was the same summer some of her friends from New Lenox were preparing to be moved to Lincoln-Way West as the district re-distributed student bodies to three schools.

The combined marching band was “a big deal,” Kylie said. “At first a lot of people didn’t like it, but I am really happy they did it because we were able to do some really cool things with it.” It also gave her a chance to still see the friends that transferred to West, she said.

Kylie also played in Jazz Band (her favorite thing) was able to attend two summer Jazz Camps while in high school.

Marching band and jazz band competitions from high school are her best memories, along with the sometimes-long bus rides to and from with her band friends, she said.

Looking back on the past four years, Kylie said she has grown more optimistic, and doesn’t let small thing bother her as much.

A summer internship allows her to work on groundwater and soil treatments, but she is really looking forward to a future with renewable energy.

“Engineering is solving problems,” Kylie said, “So it’s going to be solving a lot of environmental problems.”

“Renewable energy is definitely the coolest.”