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Miami Palmetto Senior High School incoming senior Sebastian Soto is multi-talented. He recently won the Outstanding Junior Actor Award for Drama and the Outstanding Television Production Junior Student. He’s also a talented diver.
This summer he’s the Head CIT (counselor in training) at the Miami Diving Camp at the University of Miami, in charge of supervising all other CITs and delegating their responsibilities. He was a CIT last summer after attending as a camper for seven years.
“Now I teach kids how to dive,” he says. “I love getting to know them. I love getting to work with them, not just as divers. It’s really cool to work with kids and give back to the community. And seeing them grow, seeing them overcome obstacles.”
As a CIT, he works for service hours. Last summer he worked seven weeks out of ten, this year he’s doing all nine weeks of summer.
Campers are split into groups.
“When I’m coaching them, it’s usually eight to nine kids at a time,” he says.
The campers not only dive, they also do fun activities such as arts and crafts and interactive games.
Although he loves diving, he does not dive for the Palmetto Dive team because he doesn’t have the time.
“I had considered diving either at Palmetto or the diving team at UM,” he says. “But I had AP’s and thought it would be better to focus on academics and then focus on diving during the summer.”
Another passion is Drama. He’s been in drama since sixth grade and this coming year he’ll be vice president of Thespians.
“It’s helped me get out of my shell. I used to be so shy,” he says. “It’s helped me grow as a person and I’m so thankful for that.”
He was Perch Perkins, the news reporter in the SpongeBob production last spring.
“We had everyone come out and sitting on lawn chairs or picnic blankets,” he says. “It was a lot of fun. It was playful and inviting. It was really cool to do.”
He’s president of the Improv Club.
“It’s the sister club of Thespians,” he says. “Thespians is a little more intense. Improv is more relaxed. You have fun and get to be with your friends.”
He’s also been in TV Production since seventh grade.
As the incoming President of TV Production, Soto is excited to work in the amazing studio Palmetto now has with new equipment.
“I have so many more opportunities,” he says. “We are in charge of producing announcements and filming all Palmetto events. The days we have class, we have a live broadcast.”
In the upcoming school year, the Palmetto TV Production students plan to attend the Student Television Network conference.
“There is a wide array of events,” he says. “A bunch of different things, you bring all your equipment. You’d get a topic, and you get X amount of time to produce a video based on that topic. I’m excited to be leading us through that.”
Soto prefers to be behind the scenes for the TV productions, although he can do both.
“I enjoy directing,” he says. “I hope to pursue it as a career.”
Soto is looking forward to the Mr. Panther show TV Production produces every year.
“It’s one of most popular events at school,” he says. “I had the honor of producing and hosting it this (junior) year.”
With college on the horizon, Soto’s college list includes the University of Southern California, the University of Florida, the University of Miami, Northwestern University, Syracuse University and American University. His major will be broadcast journalism.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
