Jesse Fife attended some of his last classes before finals on Friday. High school will officially be over for seniors at his school, Fruita Monument, in addition to Grand Junction and Palisade high schools by Tuesday.

And he couldn’t help but be a little melancholic.

“I don’t know how I feel about it,” said Fife, 18, who is still looking forward to a Knowledge Bowl event out of state with eight members of his team later this month. “It didn’t seem like anything that different right now, but it’s kind of hard to believe that my high school career — four years — is pretty much over. But I’m pretty excited to be moving on to new things.”

Fife knew what it was like to leave his comfort zone, however, at age 10, when his family traveled to Japan for two weeks. He said it was by far the most life-defining moment he’s had.

“You get a different perspective on different cultures,” said Fife, who visited an aunt, uncle and cousin who were living in Japan at the time. “It increased my interest in the world and events in the world internationally. I was really surprised that the food was very different. I tried some new things there like octopus and other strange dishes that I never had and just the culture of how friendly everyone was over in Japan. Everyone should have that experience just to see how big and different the world is and how America is not just the center of everything that goes on in the world.”

In fact, his view of the world is defining his entire course of college work, and possibly, his life. He has since been to England, Scotland and Ecuador with family. He plans to attend graduate school for international affairs or for international business.

“I’m leaning toward international affairs,” Fife said. “From there, I can get into their politics and possibly business as well. Studying abroad would definitely help.”

He said he’d probably opt to study abroad at some point in college, in a Spanish-speaking country to use the Spanish skills he has honed for four years in high school.

He’ll attend the University of Colorad at Boulder in the fall, starting out as an open option major.

“I decided I wanted to stay in-state after touring around college campuses in other states,” he said.

Fife narrowed his choice of colleges to CU or the University of Denver. He decided on CU after he was selected for a president’s leadership class, which takes 50 incomming freshman.

He said students in the class take three credit hours of it each semester, and after four years, students have a minor in leadership studies.

“That was something that really got my interest,” Fife said. “It made my decision to go to CU pretty final.”

Fife has been captain of the Fruita Monument Knowledge Bowl team for two years and a captain for one year of the school’s tennis team, roles he said allowed him to start to develop leadership skills.

He plans to continue playing tennis as an intramural sport at college.

“He’s a great kid,” said Julie Blevins, who co-coaches Knowledge Bowl at Fruita Monument. “We’ll be sad to see him go when he graduates.”

For now, he’s looking forward to traveling to Washington D.C., for a the Knowledge Bowl competition, to Mexico for a senior class trip with a handful of friends and possibly to Belize with family during the summer gap before starting college.

“Otherwise, I’m just going to be hanging around in town and enjoying my last summer before college.”

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E-mail Anna Maria Basquez at abasquez@gjds.com.

GPA: 4.26
Parents’ names: Keith Fife and Kathy Portner
Preferred college: University of Colorado at Boulder
Favorite book with author: “1984,” by George Orwell
Favorite musician/group: Modest Mouse
Favorite TV show: “Scrubs”
In 5 years, I want to be doing this: “Moving on to grad school to study international business or international affairs.”
My personal hero: “mixture of influential leaders (Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, FDR …), my family and teachers.”
If I could be granted done wish it would be: to be able to stop global warming
Life-defining moment: “Traveling internationally.”
Activities/interests: Tennis, Knowledge Bowl, skiing, hiking, biking, NHS