Tears flowed down my face as I walked through the San Francisco Airport security check alone. Gazing out the plane window, I was terrified of the four weeks I would be spending at summer programs on the...
Throughout my whole life, whenever I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I confidently proclaimed, “I want to be a neurosurgeon.” Yet, as I started exploring more subjects in high school,...
For many, freshman year is not much beyond a fond memory of youth, a cringeworthy point in life from which they grew as the rest of their high school years bloomed. When I think back to ninth grade, however,...
Link Crew Orientation. Club Info Day. Homecoming. While all my friends were finding out about these opportunities for the first time, it was nothing new to me. I already knew the details of these events...
Why did the scarecrow get an award? Because he was out-standing in his field. [Cue laugh track.] I know; that was a really bad joke. It probably didn’t even make you laugh, but I swear my humor is usually...
Music is an unmoving constant in my life. As I became taller, my to-do list longer, my career ambitions uncertain and my stress levels soared, my ears remained plugged with the sounds of Jeff Buckley’s...
Hello! I’m in eighth grade right now, but you already graduated high school. You’re off to college! I’m thinking somewhere still in Calif., and definitely in the U.S.
Williams is in a rural...
In the beginning of my senior year, I had no idea where I would end up after high school: whether I would be staying or leaving home for college. As I weighed my options, my friends and peers constantly...
“You never know what someone is going through” is a phrase that I’ve heard throughout my life, usually at the center of some moral lesson. Never did I imagine that I would be that “someone” —...
Stepping into a bustling fifth-grade classroom, I embraced a life-changing move from Chennai, India to San Jose, California, hoping for better education and brighter opportunities, but unaware of the challenges...
In the middle of the summer before my senior year, I laid in bed, the same moving frames playing over and over again in my mind. I saw myself running, panting, falling. Flat on the ground, completely expressionless.
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