The Class of 2024 produced 39 valedictorians, and The Accolade interviewed each to reflect on their high school journeys and thoughts. This is a full version of the Q&A, of which the preview is included in our May magazine issue. Any remaining full-version Q&A will be posted in alphabetical order throughout the week in the Feature section.

Question 1: Which university have you committed to?
Answer: I committed to UC Irvine [University of California, Irvine].

Question 2: What will you major in?
A: Biology.

Question 3: What’s your favorite movie or TV show and why?
A: I don’t watch a whole lot of movies or TV shows, but one I like to watch with my friends is, “The Summer I Turned Pretty.” We like the different characters and bonding over the different events that take place because we also read the books, so we like to see how they compare.

Question 4: Are there any quotes you live by that guided you through your academic journey?
A: I actually included this one on a college application; it’s by Taylor Swift, and it basically says, ‘If you never bleed, you’re never gonna grow.’ The reason why I stick by that is because we all go through different obstacles, good and bad, and so our job is to just grow from each bad thing that happens and make something good out of it to improve and build character and help us face harder and more complex things that come our way.

Question 5: What extracurricular activities or hobbies did you enjoy in high school, and how did they complement your academic success?
A: One big thing I was a part of was Key Club. I joined in sophomore year because in freshman year there was COVID-19, and I just really like the people that I met there. — I met a lot of my friends in Key Club and we bonded over the different service activities and bonding events that Key Club provided. Another extracurricular I did was cross country. For that one, I felt like it was something completely out of my comfort zone originally because I was never super athletic. But, it definitely taught me to try new things in the future because cross country was hard, but I was still able to do it despite my lack of athletic history.

Question 6: What subject did others find hard, but in your opinion was the easiest for you?
A: I don’t really find very many things easy, but I guess something that people found hard was biology. I personally like science; that’s why I’m majoring in it. Most people think that there are a lot of components in biology that are hard to memorize, but I found that once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

Question 7: What extracurricular activity did you struggle to balance with your grades?
A: Well, for cross country, it took a lot of time because we had practice like every day from after school all the way to 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m., and that was hard because you still had to go home and do homework. On Wednesdays and the weekends, we had to go to different schools and race and that’s from really early in the morning till the afternoon. So with that, it was just a very time consuming thing and we still had to go home and study. I had to learn how to balance.

Question 8: What did you sacrifice to maintain your grades?
A: I guess sacrificing time for myself in a way — when you have to take a portion of your day to study for an upcoming test or to do assignments early when you realize you have another activity to do later in the week.  By doing that, I take time away from doing things that I would like, like reading or hanging out with my family.

Question 9: How did your surrounding friends/family support you throughout your high school years?
A: I remember freshman year being my hardest year because I was so different from junior high. So I definitely had a lot of mental breakdowns, but my friends and family would just reassure me that everything will be okay and just to do [my] best. Whatever happens happens, but there’s only so much that you can do; just study, and ask for help if you need help.

Question 10: Who is one teacher you are thankful for/look up to?
A: It’s definitely Mr. [Greg] Abbott, my psychology teacher. In the future, I do want to become a psychiatrist, but I’m majoring in biology because you need that to become a psychiatrist. He definitely inspired my passion to want to work with people and really just understand the mind more. His course was definitely my favorite course out of my high school career, and he was just overall a very positive teacher.

Question 11: What is one study habit you recommend to underclassmen?
A: I think just from experience, give yourself a couple days before an exam. Don’t cram it the night before. You want to train your brain to actually absorb the information rather than cramming it all the night before, making it hard to actually retain the information. Give yourself enough time, plan your days leading up to the exam.

Question 12: What is one advice you would tell your freshman self?
A: To not overthink everything. In freshman year, I would overthink everything from academics to making friends because I didn’t know what sophomore year would be like. I would say to take things day by day and let things happen the way they’re supposed to. Don’t overthink about the possibilities.

Question 13: How did you discover what you wanted to major in college?
A: It was mainly just taking AP [Advanced Placement] Psych [Psychology] with Mr. Abbott. He definitely was a big driving point to want to become a psychiatrist, but also I volunteered at a senior center during sophomore, junior, senior years, and I definitely really liked the relationships that I built while working with all the different seniors. They definitely inspired me to want to continue to listen to other people and be able to give advice because they definitely did appreciate it when we were there to listen to them.

Question 14: If you had to go back to any moment of your life when would it be?
A: When I went to Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour. I’ve always been a huge Swiftie, so that was a very magical moment. I also went with my friends and we were all just so happy that day. It was definitely a very positive experience that I would want to live again.

Question 15: What career do you eventually want to have in the future?
A: A psychiatrist.