Somewhere – a phone buzzes, encouraging the receiver to pick up, but it goes unnoticed by senior Ellen Cocurull as she studies hard to keep her position in the top 10 students of her class.

Aside from her impressive work in school, Ellen has been involved with serving the community. Beginning her freshman year, she has taken the role of a student leader in her church. She meets on Sunday and Wednesday nights, helps out the other students, and sets of various outreaches and serving opportunities. 

On Wednesday morning, she handed out Chick-Fil-A gift cards and invited others to join in the youth group taking place that night. She also helps in meetings to look for ways to include the high school demographic in events, lessons, and invitations.

“The people that I surround myself with, my friends, are also super motivated in school and just seeing them work so hard helps,” Cocurull said.

Even with her time being dedicated to helping others, she impressively finds ways to hold her standing, having the tenth highest GPA in her graduation class. Cocurull says the key to flourishing is prioritization.

“Sometimes, you just feel like you don’t have enough time in a day to do it all,” Cocurull said. “You do have time. It’s all about how you prioritize it. You’re always going to do your priorities first, so even if it’s an extracurricular, whatever is most important to you is going to come first.” 

Professionally, Ellen ensures that her work gets done by removing all distractions and putting her school in the forefront of her mind.

“I have to not have any electronics in the room, because I would always get distracted,” she said. “It’s just myself, and whatever it is I have to complete.”

While this method of removing distractions is very beneficial for her, Cocurull considers the main credit must go to the friends that keep her at her best. Having peers that build each other up is a big part of Ellen Cocurull’s life and she yearns to do the same for others.

Her attitude toward work, life, and friends, carries on in her plans of higher education. She is considering going to UCF or UF for oncology. This job requires a caring and compassionate feel for the families and a focused and intricate mind used to make the diagnoses.

“You can’t just prioritize school. That can’t be your only life,” Cocurull said. “You have to do other things because it will eat you up inside and I quickly discovered that I am surrounded by people that push me to join clubs and extracurriculars while still finding time to excel in school.”