By: Christopher P. (Frederic HS, 2020/Accepted by both Harvard and Stanford, 2024)

Wow… this is going to be a tough write. Assuredly, I’ve dabbled quite a bit with creative writing during my time in quarantine, but I’ve taken some time before deciding to write about this topic. Ultimately, as I found some much-needed closure -- which, undoubtedly, is something I am still grappling with -- I decided to try and sum up this period of our lives that can seem like an afterthought later on. Even then, though, these thoughts might not be a complete summary.

Right before the end of my 8th grade school year, I recall watching Steve Jobs’s 2005 Commencement address at Stanford, with the hopes of motivating myself before I came to Frederick. As I think back to the speech, one of his quotes comes to mind, which will serve as the theme for the past, the present, and the future:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path; and that will make all the difference.”

Finding a Passion isn’t Linear

I think that finding passion isn’t necessarily the hardest thing to do. In terms of how my parents have always seen it, the things I’ve found to be my passions are the activities that I do no matter how late I stay up, no matter the amount of homework I still have on my plate, and no matter the opportunity cost of the next best social event I could be attending. On the other hand, perceiving something as one’s passion can get a bit cloudy, especially with the presence of confounding variables, especially outside influence from family and career trends (i.e. everyone now wants to go into computer science because it’s lucrative, but only a select few truly adore coding). However, my story focuses more on the lack of linearity in honing in on one’s love.

I spent a lot of my middle school years doing competitions such as MATHCOUNTS and the AMC 8, focusing much of my efforts outside of my schoolwork and basketball on solving competition math problems. Given the good amount of relative success I found during my time as an 8th grader, I found it only fitting to continue the adventure as I ventured into high school.

Looking back, I was by no means learning at the rate I should’ve to keep up with the more serious competitive mathematicians: my time management was -- and oftentimes still is -- poor, I grappled with daily practice and study hall as a member of the JV basketball team, and I also tried to manage a relatively hard course load with another online class on computer science. To sum it up, it was a busy freshman year, a time so busy that I’m still boggled about how I got through it.

Amidst this chaos, I still made sure to commit myself time every couple of days to study for these competitions. However, this is where things took a turn. Sure, I still love doing mathematics, and the problems were surely interesting; nonetheless, I found it hard to enjoy the problems and do the activity for fun with the lingering thoughts of cutoff scores, awards, and college admissions. It made these competitions feel a lot more laborious and anxiety-inducing than they should’ve been, with a lot of the fun I experienced in middle school suddenly being stripped.

After a couple of “failed” mathematics competitions, I remember taking a couple of steps back and recounting what I wanted from my high school experience. I recall specifically perusing through the pages of the “Art of Problem Solving” forums, wondering if mathematics was the sole subject I wanted to focus on in the future. Long story short, I realized that competition math was not the only thing I wanted to focus on throughout high school, and with a fresh perspective in mind, I became more open to opportunities and allowed myself to breathe a little bit easier.

Not all Sacrifices are Absolute

As I mentioned in the above section, my life was hectic, much more hectic than I had ever been during any part of my middle school experience. Academically, one of the major repercussions, although not directly caused by the stress, was a reconsideration of the extracurricular activities I wanted to pursue as I went further into high school. One of the things that I often overlook, though, is how I quit playing basketball after my freshman year.

Do you know how people are asked to give a fun fact when introducing themselves in class or to a club? Well, even to this day, I often respond with how I’ve been playing basketball since I was 4. Even if I don’t play basketball competitively anymore -- although my pickup games with my dad do get intense -- basketball still encapsulates much of my culture. From my Instagram feed to me being a self-proclaimed “sneakerhead” to the music I jam to before big tests, basketball is still around me. So, you can imagine how hard it was to give it up.

In a way, my commitment to basketball ended much in the same way as my interest in competitive mathematics declined. Without a doubt, my teammates, the feeling of playing in games, and countless jokes and Chinese food runs made the experience worthwhile. However, that ended up becoming the issue: I enjoyed basketball much more for the social experience rather than for the desire to win.

If anything, that was one of the primary reasons for the slump I had following the end of my basketball season: after I finished my homework and worked on extracurriculars, while I didn’t have the same amount of time to goof off with my teammates as I normally had, I still found myself missing the social component greatly. Nonetheless, as spring turned to summer, I found a way to continue hanging out with my friends, playing pickup at the local gym, and much more time to explore my academic and extracurricular passions, so the sacrifice was worth it. Now, as I prepare to head off to college, I know that while I probably can’t make the Division I basketball team at Stanford (even though you can never say never), I can always play pickup or intramural basketball while also meeting some new friends in the process.

Enjoying the Ride with Balance

I’ve been asked countless times over these last couple of months to talk about the advice I would give to my freshman year self after having graduated. Almost all of the time, I’ve given an answer that is some derivation of the notion of enjoying the process more often.

Oftentimes, my parents read this quote and jump to the conclusion that I was overwhelmingly unhappy during high school. However, this was simply not the case, as I’ve found high school to be the most enjoyable period in my life so far. I’ve made countless new friends, strengthened long-lasting relationships, and have gone on adventures with the newfound freedom that comes from the transition from a tween to a teen. Nonetheless, this wasn’t to say it was all a blast.

Throughout high school, in addition to the momentous sacrifices such as quitting basketball, I occasionally had to say no to going to a game to study for a test, no to a party to finish an essay or skip out on a road trip to get ready for an extracurricular competition. With hindsight being 20/20, I’ve realized that I didn’t have to settle for studying or going out in most circumstances; if anything, if I had just managed my time better, I would’ve been able to grapple both with much ease.

As the pandemic has given me time to think, I’ve come to redefine the meaning of what happiness is: to me, it’s a conflation of being content and appreciative of your family, friends, and experiences around you while still having big dreams about your future and the road ahead. These two halves may seem opposed to many, especially since “contentedness” and “ambition” are seemingly antonyms. Nonetheless, as I prepare to go into college with an open mind, this is the mentality I’ve developed moving forward.

From my experience, this balance is significantly hard to achieve: many ambitious students who aspire to go to the top-ranked universities are often more leaning on the “ambition” side. This isn’t to say that they don’t go out with friends or enjoy a cup of joe now and then. Even so, considering I fit into this category for much of high school, I know firsthand the feeling of uneasiness this archetype feels, especially when everyone around you seems to develop such tight-knit relationships and goes on such fun-filled treks.

Enjoy the ride, trust the process, and remember to have a balance.

Finding Friends

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a naturally shy person. If I had to describe myself in terms of my openness to being with others, I’d say a succinct phrase would be “an introvert that eventually becomes an extrovert,” with a little tinge of awkwardness in the mix. This hodgepodge of characteristics isn’t always one that results in a large group of friends, but the friends I’ve had in middle school -- since I went to a different elementary school that most of my peers -- are still with me today.

This may not seem like a strength, but as the adage goes, “quality over quantity.” For one thing, I’ve seen time and time again the number of individuals who have an uncountable number of friends who, eventually, all break off and start hating each other. I’ve never been a big fan of that dynamic.

Moreover, especially as us seniors have been placed into quite strenuous circumstances -- from being stripped of prom, graduation, admit events and the like -- we all need people we can both share a laugh with as well as talk with deeply about the questions that get under our skin. I’ve found that these interactions come from extremely close friendships, the type that makes leaving so hard.

Also, when you find friends, don’t just circle them because they share the same intellectual interests as you; rather, seek those who share the same values. Not all of my friends are super genius programmers, physicists, or mathematicians -- although I have my fair share of those friends -- but I also have many friends who are equally as insatiable for knowledge while still sharing other commonalities in pop culture and other areas.

Finally, find friends who have a similar view of happiness. For me, these were folks that yearned to go outside and be more intrepid while still setting aside time for self-improvement, growing in their careers, and academia.

Parting Thoughts

I don’t think that high school is supposed to make a whole lot of sense even when everything is all said and done; I still don’t think I have everything figured out if I’m being honest, which explains the erratic nature of this spiel. Nonetheless, with all of the time on our hands, take the time to think about what all the pieces in this chapter of “high school” mean, and how you can optimize the rest of the period to make it a long-lasting moment.

As someone who was heavily focused on academia and extracurriculars for so long in high school, I agree that it’s easy looking back without knowing how a single change might affect the outcome. However, remember that after high school, your childhood is essentially over, and life truly begins.