There’s a certain kind of competiveness and desire to get things done to the best and fullest of one’s abilities that you don’t find in just anyone, but Junior Reid Larson is one of those people.

One humorous example is shared by Junior Brianna Larson, when Reid broke his nose playing volleyball freshmen year.

“His face (nose, I guess) collided with my hip bone, and after a bit I got him up and looked him in the face. He said “I’m ready. We’re finishing this game.” And I said, “Reid, no we’re not. Your nose is broken.” It just goes to show how fully he dedicates himself to what he does. He is a go-getter and always will be,” Larson said.

In addition to playing volleyball, Reid’s hobbies include soccer, boating, campfires/bonfires, and really just spending time with friends and family.

Reid is someone who, while dedicated to what he is involved in, still makes time to have fun and be there for his friends.

“Reid is the most genuine and trustworthy person I have had the pleasure to know. He also has a really good sense of humor and makes any activity or situation more fun with his energetic attitude and smile. He is dependable through both the ups and downs of life, and can always manage to make a person smile, even if they’re having a bad day,” Junior Paige Heitzman said.

At Gustavus, Reid is involved in a number of activities. He is Co-President of the League of Legends Club, secretary of German Club, and attends Smash Club as well as International Club events.

His interests in German and international culture derives in part from his German heritage on his mother’s side and took off in high school when he started taking German language classes.

“I extremely enjoyed all of the German classes and ended up travelling to German with my high school teacher and a few other student, during which I had a family-stay in Leipzig which turned out to be, hands down, the best week of my life. Since then, I have returned to Germany during the J-term of 2015. I traveled alone and wound up visiting friends in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Leipzig, and Hamburg, as well as making my way up to Sweden and London to visit friends there,” Larson said.

As for his Academics, Larson loves Chemistry and plans to pursue graduate school in the future, hopefully one day becoming a professor himself.

He enjoys chemistry for it’s abilities to provide pathways and mechanisms to explain many of things around us and even inside of us, but this interest didn’t come forthright.

“My freshmen year my Gen Chem professor, Dr. Gardner, really got me interested in chemistry because, while I had already known many facts about chemistry to be true from high school, my high school teacher was never able to explain to me why they were true and how we came to such conclusions. Gardner, on the other hand, enthusiastically explained these things to me in my first semester here at Gustavus. Since then, I have developed a special liking to organic chemistry through the teachings of Dr. Scott Bur and Dr. Brian O’Brien,” Larson said.

Larson so far has to many good memories from Gustavus to share any particular one, but his favorite thing has been his ability to really interact one-on-one with professors to better understand subject material and learn more.

So if you see Reid around campus, don’t be too shy. In the words of his friends, he’s “caring,” “amazingly humorous,” “loyal,” and “can always manage to make a person smile.”

“If you want to have a consistently positive and passionate friend, you should definitely get to know Reid. He loves to laugh and always brings a great energy into whatever room he enters,” Junior John Baron said.