{"id":568,"date":"2017-06-08T12:28:02","date_gmt":"2017-06-08T19:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/?p=568"},"modified":"2017-06-08T12:28:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-08T19:28:02","slug":"chris-haileys-13-speech-to-the-class-of-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/2017\/06\/chris-haileys-13-speech-to-the-class-of-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Hailey’s (’13) Speech to the Class of 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Recipient of the Hillbrook Award, given to the student who best exemplifies our vision \u2013 to inspire students to achieve their dreams and to reach beyond themselves to make a difference in the world, Chris Hailey (’13) returns to share wisdom, advice, and laughter with this year’s graduating class as they look forward to the exciting next step in their journeys.<\/strong> <\/em>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Good morning, teachers, parents, students, friends, and guests, I\u2019m honored to be part of this special day of celebration. Congratulations to the Hillbrook Class of 2017! <\/span><\/p>\n

Four short years ago, I had my Hillbrook graduation. It was held in a different location not far from here, a bit older, more rustic, but it felt the same. The sweet moment of being handed the diploma, a sense of pride and maturity as you shake Mr. Silver\u2019s hand, the sadness of leaving a community that has been so loving and supportive all these years. After this ceremony, you will be set free for the summer. Take full advantage of these three months and enjoy the carefree time with friends and family, because when high school starts, it will be a whole different story. <\/span><\/p>\n

To me, it\u2019s hard to describe with just a few words the transition from middle school to high school. If middle school is a latte, high school is a Unicorn Frappuccino. If middle school is a cruise down Los Gatos Boulevard, High School is a hi-speed race down Highway 17 at night. High school will take you on wild twists and turns, and yes, there will be more work, greater responsibilities, higher expectations, and certainly increased pressure to get good grades. <\/span><\/p>\n

And in the midst of all your pursuits: academics, athletics, clubs, extracurriculars, part time jobs, and binge-watching the latest Netflix series, it\u2019s often easy to neglect some basic things, such as getting a good night\u2019s sleep or finding time to relax. But I\u2019m not here today to give you a list of things you need to succeed in high school. Instead I want to share with you three important lessons that I\u2019ve learned from my four years in high school. As you begin planning your next four years, I hope you find some of these tips helpful. <\/span><\/p>\n

Picture this, you walk into the classroom, a few minutes late. Your teacher asks for your homework, so you open your binder, and there\u2019s nothing there. Now I need some student participation: I would like you to raise your hand if something like that has ever happened to you (forgetting the homework). Good, I was hoping that nobody would be shy. But you are probably used to some level of forgiveness, especially from our kind, accommodating Hillbrook teachers. Unfortunately, high school teachers have much less tolerance. In fact, some of them will just give you a big fat donut for assignments that are not turned in. And this donut is far from sweet: a zero on your report card does not look good. Trust me, having to explain to my parents the \u201cF\u201d on my progress report was not fun. So my first lesson is, as cliche as it may sound, finishing your assignments and turning them in on time – it is better for you to put in the effort and have partially done homework than it is to not turn in at all. <\/span><\/p>\n

While I was able to catch on my first lesson quickly, it certainly took a while for me to learn my second. Not long after I started high school, I realized that in this big pond of intelligence, talent, and ability, I was merely an average-sized fish. There were science fair finalists, math contests winners, cross country stars, and debate champions. There were freshmen students who had already completed Calculus in middle school and were taking college level Multivariable Calculus. And then there was me, who naively thought he was ahead for already being in geometry in eighth grade. For the first time in school, I felt like I was behind. So what did I do? Well, my school offered these summer courses as pre-requirements for students who wanted to take advanced placement courses the following school year. Given the pace and workload of these classes, most students take only one class. I, however, decided to sign up for two, so I could take 3 AP courses my sophomore year. My first summer of high school went like this: Arriving in the classroom at 7:45 in the morning, attending lessons for 7 hours, getting home at 5 with 3-5 more hours of homework. Sounds like a perfect summer, right? And this went on for two months. Needless to say, I didn\u2019t have much of a break. While I did fine with the 3 AP courses in sophomore year, I felt I was taking these classes not because I enjoyed them, but rather I tried to catch up to the big fish. The summer after sophomore year, I passed the opportunity to take more AP prep courses and decided to implement a mobile app idea that had brewed in my mind for a while. I taught myself JavaScript, HTML, and other programming languages needed to build the application from scratch. This turned out to be the best decision I made in two years: I learned so much that summer and truly enjoyed every part of it. I started my junior year with a sharpened mind and newly gained skills in computer programming. I stopped comparing myself to others and giving into peer pressure. I sought a balance between the challenging courses and the pursuit of my interests outside of school. People often say that junior year is the hardest year of high school; to me it was the best year. So this is the second lesson I learned: find your own path-don\u2019t let external pressures guide you. <\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, you are probably thinking that high school is all about homework, AP courses, and peer pressure. Well, rest assured, this is absolutely not true. High school can actually be fun too. There are many student organizations that you can join, and you can even create your own club. I remember the first time I went to my school\u2019s annual club fair; I was like a kid in a candy store. With more than 100 clubs presented in the gym, I was naturally drawn to the ones that interested me: Art club, multimedia club, computer club, tutoring club, acapella group, you name it. I was in the midst of chatting with a music club representative when I heard: \u201cChris, Chris\u201d An upperclassmen whom I had befriended waved me over to his table. \u201cYou better sign up for DECA, Chris. Best club ever!\u201d he raved. I quickly read his poster; it described DECA as a competitive business club where members attend different conferences and compete in various business projects. \u201cBut I know nothing about business\u201d I told him. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. You will learn. We will enlighten you.\u201d Before I could respond, he already put my name on the signup sheet. Since he was the only junior friend I had in this new school, I decided to give it a try. Little did I know back then the impact that this one student organization would have on me. In the next three years, I had learned to be a Founder of a startup pitching an idea to VCs, a salesman promoting a new hotel to a conference manager, a financial advisor to a financially struggling college student, a business lawyer questioning the ethics of a food processing company, and many more. In fact, the mobile application I worked on my sophomore summer was inspired by an entrepreneurship project I did for a State conference. DECA has taught me so much about entrepreneurship, management, finance, marketing, sales, and most importantly, it has helped me discover my interest in business. Although I\u2019ll be studying engineering, I know that I will continue to pursue business in college and beyond. So this comes to my third and final lesson: keep an open mind to new things- It may open your world to new opportunities. <\/span><\/p>\n

Class of 2017, you are less than an hour away from graduating. You feeling the excitement yet? As a familiar song goes: \u201cIt\u2019s a world of laughter a world of tears, it\u2019s a world of hopes and a world of fears.\u201d All these emotions — joy, sadness, hopes, fears– are about to amplify as you enter high school. But fear not, trust me, Hillbrook has prepared you well to take on any challenge you may face. Remember, keep an open mind, be yourself, and most importantly, turn in your homework. High school may not be as confusing and frightening of a place after all. I wish you all the best of luck, and once again, congratulations to the class of 2017! <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recipient of the Hillbrook Award, given to the student who best exemplifies our vision \u2013 to inspire students to achieve their dreams and to reach …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","content-type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143,57,162,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-core-values","category-extraordinary-educational-experience","category-graduation","category-middle-school"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":570,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions\/570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hillbrook.us\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}