Antilles School valedictorian Brian Oldfield has big dreams. The St. John resident is off to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this fall to study mechanical engineering with the goal of working in alternative energy.
"There needs to be a global shift towards using alternative energy and protecting natural resources, and I am endeavoring to be a part of this change," he wrote in his college application.
Because he grew up on St. John, he says, Oldfield could see the possibilities for wind and solar-power systems. St. John’s small size makes it feasible to implement those systems, he says.
He’s leaning toward an alternative-energy career, so it’s no surprise that he’s an avid environmentalist. During his sophomore year, Oldfield helped with a tree survey on Fish Bay conservation land to help builders understand the importance of the area’s ecosystem.
Oldfield, 18, says he’s excited to go off to school because MIT is an "amazing place with so much going on."
He’s also delighted that MIT has a tennis program. Oldfield spoke to the Source by phone from an Atlanta tennis camp. He played throughout high school at Caneel Bay Resort’s courts because Antilles didn’t have a tennis team. He’s ranked the number-three junior in the Caribbean section of the U.S. Tennis Association, and represented the territory in the 2009 Americas Zone Davis Cup competition.
"I like to compete and it’s a good outlet," he says. "It’s a game where you get to think a lot."
Oldfield went to preschool at what was then Pine Peace School, now Gifft Hill School. His family went back and forth to his native New York after building a house on St. John in 1991, but moved to St. John full time in 2003. After attending elementary school in New York, he switched to Antilles. At Antilles, he was a member of the National Honor Society and a National Merit Scholar finalist.
The commute from St. John to Antilles on St. Thomas was a "kind of a pain," but like most St. John students he endured.
"You have to keep focused and keep your mind on your goal," he says.
Most of the issues were social and involved transportation logistics. In fact, in his graduation address, he thanked his friends and their parents for helping out with places to stay and transportation so he could participate more fully in the Antilles social life.
Until he heads off to MIT, he’ll be at home with his mother, Gail Karlsson, and father, Edward Oldfield. His brother, Kevin, recently graduated from Cooper Union in New York.
When he gets home from tennis camp, he Oldfield hopes to get in some more beach time with his friends and, if the conditions are right, a bit of surfing.
His mother says that she and his father are very proud of their son.
"He worked so hard," Karlsson says.
Oldfield acknowledges that it was hard work that got him where he is today, but he also notes that he avoided one common distraction.
"I didn’t play too many video games," he says.
