Jadah Keith is a senior at Whitney M Young Magnet High School who is consistently referred to as “Jah-dah” or “Ja-duh” by her principal and later by her colleagues. She has often thought that it might be better to add “Pinkett Smith” after her first name to make sure whoever is reading or saying her name that they know it is pronounced similarly to the famous actress, despite the “h” in her name. She resides in the West Garfield Park area and has been attending Whitney Young since she was a freshman. She is from Naperville, Illinois, a west suburb of Chicago, and had she not been accepted to Whitney Young she would be attending Naperville Central High School, where she believes would not have benefited her the same way Whitney Young has.

Jadah remembers her strongest adversity of not only starting high school but starting school in a new place. She says “It was a real struggle to go into high school without knowing anyone there, and have to start all over again and make new friends. I was pretty much alone for the first two weeks of school, and it was really hard. But I got through it!” She says coming from the suburbs to the city was a true challenge, and one of her biggest so far.

Jadah believes she has been exposed to many opportunities that she would not have encountered at any other high school. She has become a long time member of the Girls Track and Field team, where she broke the school shot put record and won the City Championships three years in a row. She has also developed her film production skills through DubTV, the school’s television broadcast. In this class, she has also entered a WTTW young filmmakers contest where she won an award and a prize of $1,500. She has also become a part of a youth project at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago called Project Elevate, where she is a leader of the Youth Expert Advisory Board. At Whitney Young, she also developed a skill and love for jazz, where she continues to play trumpet and is a member of the Jazz Ensemble and the Ravinia Jazz Scholars.

Jadah will attend Vanderbilt University in the fall where she is currently deciding her major, which will be between Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, Health, and Society. After obtaining her undergraduate degree she will continue on the medical school where she will study to become an Ob/Gyn.

A quote Jadah likes to live by is “It is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”, which she heard from the first recorded Ted Talk.