Maddy Kim: “I’ve been doing art for as long as I remember and it’s always been something very special to me, something I’ve enjoyed. But I didn’t really start taking it seriously or viewing it as a potential career option until around middle school, and I’d say most of that is because around that time, I started realizing that there were people who did do it [art] for a living. Then I thought it would be really fun to do that for the rest of my life. I think a big influence on why that’s been an option for me is definitely my parents. They’ve been helpful and very open to me trying new things and to finding happiness in life, rather than just monetary success. I spend a lot of my time looking at art online, and looking at artists that I admire, and seeing what paths they took and what would be possible for me to take in the future.”
Edmond (Eddie) Wu: “Starting in 2022, I made hyper-realistic police vehicle [digital models]. I think it’s just me being picky about unrealistic cars that I find on the internet for this game [Grand Theft Auto 5, commonly known as GTA]. So I’m like, hey, since I live in California, and I have all the parts to make these realistic vehicles that aren’t found anywhere else, I decided to make them myself and use them for my own case and my own patrol inside GTA and LSPDFR [Los Santos Police Department First Response mod]. I’ve always been admiring how people in law enforcement actually do work, which currently I cannot do, so the best I can do is make vehicles to help my cravings in law enforcement. So what I do is just take a bunch of real-life photos for reference. I even went to real-life cities to actually look at those cars, in LA and San Francisco. When I originally started watching police body-cam videos on YouTube, it kind of fueled my ‘police era’. It does have a very big probability of me being a law enforcement officer, especially because of my passion and my hobby right now of creating police vehicles, and my interest in police work. Something [people] might not know is that the amount of money it takes to make just a singular model. Even though I’m putting this out for free, I did purchase all these parts myself. Probably one of these cars, just to start and get to know what you’re doing, it tops off around, probably, $70 to actually get started and to know how to monitor stuff, especially because, for the car model software I use, it’s paid by the month. So, for this to be a passion and a hobby for me, I need to be really, really motivated and dedicated to making these cars to the best of my ability. You need to be able to invest and spend a little bit of money into this in order to know what you’re actually doing and push out a high-quality product, which is always my goal.”
Akshara Srigiriraju: “I first started singing when I was 5 years old. I sing Carnatic music, which is a type of Indian classical vocal music. In the first few years of singing, I didn’t think profound, deep thoughts about music. I went to class once a week, and my mom helped me practice every day. Eventually, I made some friends and performed with my group in some venues. While I enjoyed singing, I didn’t understand the importance of this art form until later on. Music started becoming a bigger part of my life around my 5th/6th grade year. I had passed the basics, and not surprisingly, my repertoire became more interesting. The songs I was learning were real pieces of their own with beautiful melodies and lyrics, not just rudimentary exercises developed to teach kids the fundamentals. Around this time, I started to look at music as not just a difficult skill but as something that I was passionate about — something that itself brought me happiness. My relationship with music evolved as I became older. Music eventually became an all-encompassing part of my life, so much so that some Carnatic song is always stuck in my head, and more often than not, I am humming it. I have grown to understand the beauty of the art form, and it brings me pure joy when I listen to and sing music. And, music is a way to connect with my Indian heritage, both through the poetic language of the songs and through the stories referenced in the songs. What started as a class I took became so much more. As we make our way through our busy lives, wrapped up in school and extracurriculars, I think it’s important to have something that we turn to in the midst of all of this craziness. And while I still have a lot to learn and accomplish, I’m grateful to music for being that comfort in my life.”
Stanley Liu: “I first joined debate because I liked arguing with my friends, but it ended up becoming something a lot bigger than that. Now I’m a junior on the varsity debate team, and debate is a huge part of my life now. We travel to big tournaments all over the country: places like Chicago, Phoenix and Des Moines. You’re meeting new competitors, adapting to new judges and debating in rooms that sometimes feel way too serious for high school. But that’s also what makes it exciting. Balancing school with all the travel is definitely hard. But I definitely think it’s worth it, because debate has taught me how to think under pressure and how to stay calm even when things get chaotic. My favorite part is the people, my teammates and the community we’ve built. We hang out and have fun in the hotel between rounds, but when we’re actually in the round, everyone’s locked in. It’s one of the few activities where you get to see how far you can push yourself mentally and academically, and I really love that.”
