Do will attend Georgia Tech in the fall.
Where are you going to college and what will your major be?
This fall, I will be attending Georgia Tech and I will be majoring in computer science.
What about college are you most excited for?
I’m really excited for the opportunities that will open up. Especially since here, I never actually took a computer science course since our high school doesn’t offer any. I’m really excited to actually get my hands dirty in the material at Georgia Tech.
When did you first realize you were going to be in the top two of your class? How did you react?
I didn’t really know until the end. I wasn’t really trying to be cognizant of my class placement. I just sort of did my own thing and, when it happened, I was like “Hey, that’s kind of cool!”
What kind of work did you put in to get to this point?
I think it took a lot of discipline and balancing my schedule. Having IB courses on top of dual enrollment and honors was really sort of difficult. Especially over the summer when I had other activities that I wanted to have fun with.
What advice would you give students who want to follow in your footsteps and be their school’s next valedictorian or salutatorian?
Definitely, as cheesy as the IB learner profile is, it’s necessary to be the principled, balanced, knowledgeable person and make the best of what you have, understand your limitations and try to put those into practice.
What’s something you wish you knew about high school ahead of time?
I definitely wish I knew a little bit more about what senior year is like, especially with college apps. It’s really frightening and really stressful, extremely stressful, to have to juggle all my classes and then studying for exams in addition to figuring out what exactly college is.
What was your favorite moment of high school?
My favorite moment didn’t actually happen on school campus, but over the summer of my junior year I was one of 25 students who was selected to attend a summer camp at Apple. So being able to be one of those few students who was able to experience what it’s like in the Cupertino workplace at Apple was really exciting.
How are you going to spend this summer?
I was selected to be a Generation Google scholar, so I’ll be at a Google campus studying computer science.
What’s the best thing one of your teachers has taught you while in high school?
One of the most inspirational teachers I’ve ever had was Mr. H., Mr. Haczynski. I think that his central dogma to life is, although it’s important to study and be mindful of your surroundings, you need to just take a deep breath, relax and have a “mindful minute” every once in a while.
What do you hope to do in life after college?
I’d love to return to Apple and be a user interface designer. I think it would be a really incredible experience to return there and actually do something a little bit more worthwhile than what I did as a junior.
