When performing surgery with limited resources, doctors have to rely on their education, centuries of surgical best practices, and an ability to improvise, Dr. David Shaye told honors biology students during an in-house field trip.

“Your education, from beginning to end, is like a collection of Legos,” said Dr. Shaye, a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. “You’re picking up little pieces along the way, and throughout your life, you’ll figure out ways to put them together.”

“There are so many things the world calls ugly and my intention is to make them beautiful,” poet and hip-hop artist Lakirya (Oompa) Williams told students at the GASP (Gender and Sexuality Perspectives) assembly. Self-described as “hood, queer, black, womynist, orphan, auntie, sister, friend and teacher,” Oompa performed four of her pieces, which weave personal stories to explore identity, poverty, family and society.

“I tell stories that I’ve felt shame around, about being black, being queer, being a ghetto kid,” said Oompa, who grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. “These stories are specific to my life. All of our stories are hugely important, even the ones that you don’t want to tell.”

Oompa spoke to students about how she recently left a career in teaching to focus full time on her poetry and music, and how she had to “get out of [her] own way” to find success. “If you have something to give the world, just go for it.”

It was a bountiful spring of writing awards for numerous creative and nonfiction writing students. Out of the 28 students who earned 45 regional scholastic writing honors back in January, five won national recognition. Caroline Bragg (III) won a gold medal for flash fiction, Erika Yip (II) won a gold medal for poetry, Sarah Hsu (I) won a silver medal for flash fiction, and Clara Wolff (I) won a silver medal for poetry. Notably, Akua Owusu (I) won a silver medal with distinction for her writing portfolio, which consisted of eight pieces of poetry and nonfiction essays.

“One of the essays I wrote for my nonfictions class,” says Akua. “It’s about my father and his immigration story of coming to America from Ghana. It’s also about how I think about success and living up to expectations. When I first started writing in my English classes, it was hard to write about personal stuff, but now I’m comfortable writing about stuff closer to home. You gain confidence in yourself.”

Erika’s gold medal-winning poem was informed by her “new role as an upperclassman, inspiring me to rethink how previous years experiences shape my identity today. ‘When We Are Old Enough’ is both an ode to childhood summers and a mourning for the gradual loss of innocence and ambition through age. The poem begins with scenes of purity and illustrates the speaker’s attraction toward the mystery of being older. As the poem progresses to the second stanza, the speaker grows to feel love and lust, yet the moment is only fleeting. The short-lived moment is compared to the fraying of telephone poles with the passing of countless summers.”

Authenticity is crucial to good leadership, activist and civil rights attorney Mónica Ramírez advised Milton students.

“The only people who are experts on an issue in this world are the people who have lived the issue. My advice for you is to be exactly who you are,” said Ms. Ramírez, this year’s Margaret A. Johnson speaker. “To know exactly who you are in this exact moment is enough. If you lead with who you are, you will be on the right road.”

Young people can take action against climate change in their everyday lives, and Milton’s student environmentalists are hard at work to encourage earth-friendly practices on and off campus.

Actions as simple as being conscious of recycling and composting, turning off unused lights, and taking shorter showers can have a multiplier effect on students, says Ariane DesRosiers (I), co-head of the Lorax environmental group and the Gardening Club, green proctor in Hallowell House, and a leader on the Independent School Sustainability Coalition (ISSC), a network of students at more than 25 independent schools in New England working to make their campuses greener.

Over March break, Alex Wang (III) represented his home country of China at the Youth Forum 2019 held by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Alex was one of 42 youth delegates from 33 countries who gathered in Vienna over three days to share their experiences and ideas on topics such as drug-use prevention and rehabilitation.

“It was so interesting,” said Alex. “Although I’ve lived in a few different countries, I’ve never been to an event with people from around the world. It was refreshing and informative to hear their ideas, and then to share my ideas.”

The forum was composed of workshops and discussions, culminating with the writing of a formal statement. Alex was one of two delegates chosen to read the statement at the opening of the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the organization that supervises the application of the international drug control treaties.

Sixty-five million people around the world are displaced from their homes and on the move—the largest number of migrants in human history, humanitarian Cate Brown told students. They are refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced or stateless people who have uprooted their lives or been forced from home because of political oppression, violence, resource scarcity, and economic struggle, among other reasons.

The statistics around migration are overwhelming, Ms. Brown explained, and reflect the enormity of a crisis affecting every continent on earth, but they can distract from the human impact of migration. The average displacement time for a migrant is 17 years, and more than half of the world’s migrants are children.

JB Pritzker, Class of 1982 and the 43rd governor of the state of Illinois, will serve as Graduation day speaker on June 7, 2019.

“JB Pritzker is an extraordinarily generous spirit who has made an immeasurable difference in the lives of countless people throughout his community and beyond,” said Head of School Todd Bland. “Humble despite his huge influence, he is intelligent, relatable, and a kind-hearted leader—qualities to which we should all aspire. I am delighted to welcome him back to campus.”

Mixing punchy rhetoric and timely topics of conversation, comedian Negin Farsad showed students how she uses humor to explore ethnic, racial and religious stereotypes. An Iranian-American Muslim who grew up in Palm Springs, California, and whose teachers couldn’t pronounce her name, Ms. Farsad weaves personal stories with quick-witted humor to highlight the absurdity of stereotypes—why it’s important to reexamine iconic terms and images that perpetuate them.

Even with difficult topics such as Israel and Palestine, Ms. Farsad says, “We shouldn’t skirt around these issues and not talk about them. Don’t be afraid; it’s important to get into the issue.”

“The most difficult part is always the beginning,” novelist Kamila Shamsie told Milton students. “You have to create a whole world out of nothing.”

Ms. Shamsie, this semester’s Bingham Visiting Reader, read passages from her 2017 novel, Home Fire, and spoke with students about her process when she writes fiction. Once the world of a novel is established, making connections between the characters that advance the plot becomes a “fun technical challenge,” she explained.