Christopher Nelson never thought much about being among those at the top of his senior class; he just kept pushing forward and working hard, leaving the cards to fall where they may and attempting to set himself up for the best collegiate success possible. But while he may not have made it his goal, that work added up for him. Nelson earned the honor of salutatorian for Destrehan High School’s Class of 2017.
“I tried my hardest for 12 years,” Nelson said. “I was never really going after salutatorian. To get any high placement in the class is an honor, but it feels pretty good.”
Nelson, the son of Bruce and Charlann Nelson of Norco, was a member of the DHS Advanced Studies (Honors) Program and earned Principal’s Scholar in each of his first three years at the school. He was also a National Merit Finalist. Nelson belonged to National Honor Society and Mu Alpha Theta.
Already, he has earned 46 collegiate credits — he notes that doesn’t count an AP test he took as a senior — and he’ll take those with him to LSU, where he will major in math. He added he may elect to double major and study chemistry as well.
“I’m not 100 percent sure yet,” Nelson said. “I know I want to go to grad school but I’m not sure what I want to do with either yet. We’ll see which one I like more.”
One idea he has for a potential career path: Nelson said he’d like to teach math at the collegiate level. He realized he got enjoyment from teaching over the past few years, as he tutored other students and helped them navigate their math classes.
He believes he’d like to do it at the college level as he enjoys getting into more complex details.
“It can be hard sometimes to get high schoolers to learn more than they have to,” Nelson said. “But in college, you have to learn the complicated stuff if you’re going for math major, chemistry major or whatever you’re going for. Not necessarily really complicated things, but certainly more in-depth.”
Chemistry is another subject he hasn’t ruled out exploring further.
“I like chemistry. I remember going on a job shadow of Mr. Steven Lafleur at Shell and really enjoyed seeing how they worked in the lab,” Nelson said. “I was in chemistry class at the same time, and I saw the relationship between what we were doing in class and what they do over there, how everything correlated.”
He likes finding patterns in numbers and how one may use statistics to uncover correlations and cause and effect, potentially to solve problems or make improvements to something. Nelson is also an avid reader, citing Jack Kerouac as his favorite author and his novel “On the Road” as his favorite book — “His books are mostly stream of consciousness, and they’re easier reads,” Nelson says — and games of pool and cards are among his favorite pastimes.
Nelson credited two of his teachers for making a difference in his life, DHS biology teacher Sarah DeLoach and mathematics teacher Dawn Jacobi.
“They’ve taught me so much,” Nelson said. “I felt like I learned something every day I went into their class. That can be rare. Sometimes, you might know the material well going into a class and you’re filling in gaps for a test. But when they taught a class, I always felt like I learned something new.”
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