Angela Machon has a plan. She’s not one of those seniors who is going to college without something specific in mind for her future. She'll be attending Roger Williams College in Bristol, Rhode Island in the fall to study forensic science.

She said she decided on Roger Williams around a year ago. “I went down last year and toured it, and I fell in love with the campus,” she said. “It's pretty and it’s right on the water.” She said it’s one of a few colleges that offer forensic science, and she wanted to stay in New England.

Angela has known what she wanted to do with her future since fifth grade. “In the beginning I wanted to be a police officer, or something in law enforcement, but it evolved over time to forensic science.”

For anyone who doesn't know what forensic scientists do, and have never watched CSI or other TV crime shows, they study details of crimes by performing physical and chemical analyses on evidence provided by the police or other law enforcement.

Some forensic scientists work at the crime scene and some do their analyses in a lab. Angela said she wants to be in a lab sometimes, but not always. “I want to go to crime scenes and collect evidence.”

She took an anatomy and physiology class during high school and said she loved it. “It was a lot of fun, probably my favorite class.” She was the only student who had an interest in forensic science, and she said her teacher tailored the class a little to accommodate her. “We did some hair and fiber analysis labs because she knew I was going to go into forensic science.”

In describing her future curriculum, Angela said, “There are two tracks you can choose from when you're doing the (forensics) program — either chemistry or biology — and I like biology better than chemistry.” She took Honors Biology during her sophomore year. “It was a really fun class,” she said. Then she took physiology. “That was a lot of fun, too. We dissected pigs, sheep eyeballs, frogs and crayfish.”

Born in Michigan, Angela came to Boothbay Harbor when she was 2. She hasn't decided if she'll come back to the Boothbay area after graduating from college. “I love this area, and I'd like to come back, but I think I'd like to be in Providence or live somewhere else in Rhode Island and work in Boston.”

Angela has been on the Nordic ski, tennis, and math teams, and is a member or the Interact Club and National Honor Society.

She lives in Boothbay Harbor with her mother and stepfather and two younger half sisters. A brother is attending Wentworth College in Boston. She said her mother and stepfather, who both retired from the Coast Guard last summer, are fine with her decision to study something that might seem a little dark for some.

She said she'll miss the area. “I'm definitely going to miss the small town aspect of living here, where everybody knows everybody. Which has its good and bad points.”