Happiness matters.
/My time in high school
Attended high school in the
2000s
Overall high school experience
8/10. High school was internally hard. But externally, I had awesome teachers and an amazing group of friends.
Grades in high school
Mostly A's. Except for math.
Favorite subjects
English, History / Social Studies
Struggled with...
Math. I'm a visual learner, so I got A's on geometry and trig, and C-D's on all the abstract stuff. Ended up dropping pre-calc senior year and never taking another math class again. And no, it didn't negatively impact my career.
Favorite extracurricular
Backstage theater
Life since high school
“My greatest accomplishment has been learning to care about and take responsibility for how I feel. Learning how to rely on myself for happiness instead of on other people or circumstances. It’s life changing. ”
Attended college / university at
Foothill College
San Jose State
Majored in
Graphic Design
Places lived in US
California
Current occupations / past occupations
Copywriter, Graphic Designer
Industries I've worked in
- Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (e.g. Law, Accounting, Interior Design, Graphic Design, R&D, PR, Advertising, etc.)
Did your education prepare you for your career or occupation?
College prepared me for my career. In high school I had no clue what the process for getting into college was, or how the SATs worked. Totally clueless. I did the SAT prep course at Princeton Review, which was super helpful in raising my score. Then I went to Foothill to take core classes and figure out what I wanted to do, then transferred to SJSU. Not gonna lie, college was way harder than high school in terms of time and effort to get everything done. I didn't have much of a social life, but I also didn't really prioritize having one.
A little introspection...
To me, being successful means...
being consistently happy.
My definition of success has changed over time.
I used to believe that goal achievement and productivity through all odds defined success. That lifestyle made me physically ill. So I slowly realized what had to change.
My greatest accomplishment to date and what I’ve learned from it
My greatest accomplishment has been learning to care about and take responsibility for how I feel. Learning how to rely on myself for happiness instead of on other people or circumstances. It's life changing.
My biggest mistake or regret so far and what I’ve learned from it
I regret caring what other people thought about me and letting their opinions define me for so long.
An unexpected event that significantly changed my life and how it impacted me
I was chronically sick for 2 years without knowing why. In the end it was diagnosed as "stress". So I started to learn how to take care of myself instead of brute forcing myself through every hard situation, ignoring my feelings, and expecting over 100% all the time.
