This week's spotlight student is Daniel Johnson, a senior in the Fine Arts Academy. Since entering Westside as a magnet student his freshman year, Daniel has maintained a balance between his academics and extra-curricular activities.

Daniel has taken mostly Pre-Advanced Placement and Advanced Placement courses and is well on his way to setting the foundation for his college career by already earning fives on two AP exams and fours on three others.

Daniel is in the top 10% of his senior class and has a 4.5476 GPA.  This year, Daniel was named a National Merit Semi-Finalist based on his scores from his junior-year PSAT, on which he scored in the top 1% in the nation.  Over 1.5 million juniors take the PSAT, and Daniel is one of only two students at Westside that earned this honor, and one of 219 students in the entire state of Texas.

The same focus that Daniel has placed on academics spills over to his extra-curricular activities.  Daniel has been a member of the National Honor Society and Westside's Ecology Club for the past two years, and he recently joined Student Council. Daniel has performed numerous volunteer hours in both with these organizations, but also has volunteered outside of Westside affiliated groups because he knows helping others is the right thing to do. He is also a member of the Westside Theatre Production, in which he helps to build sets and perform other tasks instrumental to the technical side of Westside's plays.

Daniel's lifelong dream is to work in the film industry, not in front of the camera, but behind the scenes.  He says that working behind-the-scenes is a perfect mixture of art and science.  This perfect mixture of art and science are the exact words to describe how Daniel has demonstrated balance during his high school experience.

After high school, Daniel aspires to attend the University of Southern California and major in Film/Video and Photographic Arts.  There is no better place to go than Los Angles, California to pursue his love of filmmaking. 

"Seeing the behind-the-scenes processes of filmmaking is even more impressive than seeing the finished product because everyone involved is as artistically talented as they are technically skilled," Daniel said. 

Daniel said that his first day of work on a movie production cannot come quickly enough.  If his past is any prediction of his future, it is a sure thing that his name will be among the other great filmmakers.  Remember the name Daniel Patrick Johnson because he is destined to make his mark in the entertainment industry.