As the ASB nears another election cycle, I look back on the journey I’ve taken to become the Junior President; from my quiet, solitary middle school days to the approachable student leader I’ve become.
Prior to the pandemic, while attending Alice Fong Yu Alternative School, I wasn’t involved in anything, never having the opportunity to join sports, clubs, or other extracurriculars. Since our graduating class only had 66 students, I really saw no need to open up to anyone about my personal life because we’d known each other since kindergarten andI felt as though I’ve learned all there is to know about them.
When the COVID-19 pandemic stopped the world two-thirds through my 7th grade year, I lost touch with my peers and felt even more isolated with my lack of extracurriculars. During this period of isolation, the opportunity to grow shrank massively as my motivation to pursue other things besides academics decreased further to the confines of my room.
As we returned to in-person learning about a year and a half later, now going into high school, I was launched into an entirely new atmosphere of many different people, opportunities, and experiences. Transitioning from a small school to a large urban high school came easier than I anticipated, with an inexplicable and unexpected change in me. As I started to talk to more of my classmates, redevelop my social skills, and build my confidence, I opened up and met a variety of people across the school within the first few months.
While my reputation expanded and my approachable personality became my image, more of my classmates urged me to seek office. And so, I ran successfully, securing a spot as the Freshman Recording Secretary, and winning the same position on the Sophomore Cabinet the year after. While serving in this role, I was exposed to a completely different side of school events, making me feel more valuable and a part of something bigger than myself. Now, I had the opportunity to help prepare school wide activities and had a voice in some school policies.
During this time, I had never really considered going any further than this and believed that I should stick to the traditional ways of pursuing the same position throughout the entirety of my high school career. But people started encouraging me to run for president, and I decided I should take a chance and pursue the position, taking what I’ve learned from my two predecessors and creating new tactics to tackle structure and lacking engagement. Overall, I saw this as an opportunity and an obligation to step up as many of my fellow officers had decided to step down, leaving me to be the only officer to serve since freshman year.
After taking this bold move, my presidency got off to a shaky start as my controversial run against 3 other favorable candidates led to some opposition to my initiatives. The far reach I took in jumping positions also proved to be a challenge as I now had additional responsibilities in communicating and negotiating with other classes and people. Despite this, my mindset evolved and I saw that I could do more than what I was limited to, moving me to feel more motivated to get involved and express my opinions to policymakers.
Throughout my time on the ASB, I’ve learned valuable lessons about how to act when making hard decisions, negotiating, and dealing with outreach after budget restraints, various requests from students and other leaders, and conflicts of interest posed significant challenges.
On an individual level, I believe I’ve learned to better manage my time and thinking process after having many stressors and pressures from situations and the people I worked with. Through this, I think I have grown as an individual and have changed myself to go farther beyond what I first envisioned for myself, better suited for the life I have ahead.
