Cassian Shanahan, a senior at MSMS, was born in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2001. About a year later, he moved to Texas with his family. When he was just eight years old, the Shanahan family moved to Starkville, Mississippi so that his father could work at Mississippi State University. His family has traveled all over the world, including Ireland, England, and Canada.

Cassian even has citizenships with Ireland and Canada, along with his one to the United States.

Prior to MSMS, Cassian attended Starkville High School. He decided to apply for The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science for a few reasons. The first was that he didn’t feel at home at Starkville High School. He felt that most of the student body and administration did not care for academics. There were a few teachers who genuinely cared for the students, but others could not have cared less.

“The administration did not care about the students or any problems the students brought to them. They cared about the football games,” said Cassian.

Cassian also says that he felt he would not be prepared for college if he’d graduated from Starkville. He was afraid that he wouldn’t know what he wanted to do. Attending MSMS allowed for more extracurricular activities that would help him decide a possible career path. He gets more of a choice in his class schedule at MSMS which helps in career options as well.

When asked what his favorite thing about MSMS is, he stated that he loves the people. Not only did he like the student body but also the teachers and administration. Cassian is proud to attend a school in which he feels completely safe being who he is, despite if others agree or not with his choices. At the beginning of his junior year, Cassian began coming out to close friends as transgender. Earlier, he came out to staff and administration.

“I began to realize by the end of sixth early seventh grade, but now that I look back, there were a lot of moments when I was younger that point to the fact that I’m trans,” Cassian said after asked when he knew that he was trans. “I decided to come out here because I actually felt safe to do so. I didn’t feel like I would be in trouble or hurt because of who I am.”

Cassian plans to attend Mississippi State University following his high school graduation. He is going to double major in Microbiology and German and minor in Russian. He will then attend graduate school although he is unsure of where. There he wants to study Biostatistics and Epidemiology.

Cassian has one word of advice to his juniors and future classes at MSMS: “Do not worry about one bad grade, because it doesn’t make or break your future. It may affect your grade in the class, but if you work hard you can usually bring it back up.”