Neharika: What is your experience at Mission San Jose High School? 

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Alum: My experience at Mission San Jose High School was really rewarding but really stressful at the same time. So, freshman year it started off pretty okay. I was scared of going in because a lot of people were like Mission is really stressful it is a hard school. Then there was all this pressure into getting into a good school with a good GPA on top of that with everyone else competing with you. So it was kind of intimidating. And so freshman year was pretty okay. I thought during freshman year that's as hard as it would get, but it actually got a lot harder throughout the years. Academically there was a lot of pressure to do well, especially around other people. Everybody would always be talking about their grades or complaining about them, even if their grade was good so that also kind of reflected how people viewed their own grades. 

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Neharika: And did you take AP classes by any chance? 

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Alum: I took four AP classes in total, which is actually on the lower side for a lot of Mission kids. And so I felt a lot of pressure when choosing my classes because I took only two a year, and a lot of kids would take all weighted classes which would be all the honors classes possible, and filled all their elective spots with APs. I just couldn't find the extra time for that. I don't know how other people did it, but it was also a personal thing. There was a lot of pressure from everyone else to do as many APs as you can, along with weighted classes. Sometimes it even felt like they were judging you. So if they found out that you were doing only two APs or two weighted classes, they would ask you the question again and be like "Oh you are only taking two APs? I'm taking six." Oh, and they would be self-studying on top of that for more APs. Which is more of an increase in the stress of the school. 

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Neharika: On top of APs by any chance, did you do any extracurriculars that hindered your ability to take the amount of APs that other kids took? 

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Alum: I did a lot of extracurriculars in high school. And I feel like I was very well rounded in my extracurriculars anyways. That did hinder a lot of my chances to take more APs. I did taekwondo, I did guitar on the side, I had a blog I was running on Instagram, I even had DECA. And oftentimes we would go for conferences and that would take an entire five days. We would have to miss school for that, and so there was content that I would miss out on. I would have to turn in my homework on time while also dealing with my conference. And also for taekwondo, that would take out time from my afterschool, so I would have less time to study than other kids. It was a lot of time management, but it is also like I didn't have time to take those six APs because that workload didn't work for my schedule. 

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Neharika: How did you view your peers? Was there influence, did it affect you by any chance? 

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Alum: My peers, I always held myself to their standard. To the peers that were doing better than me. Because I always like comparing myself to someone who is better than me, because I can improve myself. But at Mission, there's a lot of kids who are always doing better than you and they are always academically superior too. We have very very smart kids who go there too. Like I said, they take six weighted classes and seem to be doing fine in all of that.  On top of that, they seem to be doing fine in their extracurriculars and leadership positions that they gained. But that is also a personal thing. You have to know your study style and if you are able to handle that. And it's not necessarily a bad thing if you can't. They did definitely influence my views into saying that I have to take certain APs or have to take a certain amount so I can get into college. And oftentimes I know for like around SAT season they would be like a certain score is bad when in reality in other schools that's not a bad score at all. Like 1400s in other schools, kids would be more than happy to have that score. But at Mission, if you didn't have above a 1500, you would have to retake the test. And so that is how they kind of how we all influenced each other. 

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Neharika: Talking about influence, you mentioned something about the Mission kids being a certain way. Do you think there was something called the "Mission Bubble"? If so can you express it in your own words? 

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Alum: There definitely was a Mission Bubble. The Mission Bubble was what any Mission kid would call their experience at Mission. It is just basically the academic standard that we hold ourselves to. At that point, because of the academic standard that we hold ourselves to, and the amount of extracurriculars we hold ourselves to, we didn't even necessarily have as much social time as other schools did either. Definitely, like the friends that I made in college, in their high school years spent a little bit less time studying, and had time to build different relationships with different people. So the Mission bubble is definitely there.  

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Neharika: Generally, how are your peers in terms of speaking to other people? Did they have enough time to do anything else but study? 

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Alum: We all had to make time for extracurriculars at Mission, so it wasn't all just study study study. So on top of being academically on top of it. We also had our leadership positions and any extracurricular that you do, like club officers, or like your participation in a really big club like speech and debate, or like DECA or something of the sorts. Or you started some side projects of your own outside of school. Or if you were the president of your own club. Like I was a founder of Flame. Which is like an organization I started with my friend to help young girls in career exploration. So there was a lot of pressure to do well outside of school as well. 

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Neharika: So going back to the idea of understanding and balancing time management as well, what is the biggest thing that helped you understand? Was there something that really pushed you into trying to manage your time? Were there points in your life that you felt like you were about to give up? 

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Alum: There were definitely points in my life at Mission that I felt like I was going to give up. Especially at college aps season when I was taking one of the two hardest APs at Mission. Which I thought I could handle and was pressured into. Because I was a major in computer science and a lot of people that were doing computer science were also taking the same APs that I did and I had friends doing the same things, but it was just not fit for me. Because their schedules were way different than mine. I had a lot of extracurriculars that were a lot to handle, so at the end of the day I ended up dropping the AP class. But it was a good move for me because I was a lot mentally healthier after that. But definitely, you need to learn how to manage your time. You need to know how much time you spend on your extracurriculars outside of school, and also how much time you need to do well in the classes that you are actually enrolled in. For example in my case, since I dropped that AP class, I didn't have enough time to keep my extracurriculars going. As well as doing well in all of my classes. It was better for me mentally and physically to just drop it. So that was the kind of distinction you need to make, and at that point, you need to know to stop comparing yourself to other people because they are different than you at the end of the day. And you have to do what's best for you and not them.  

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Neharika: An so now finding the link between AP classes and college. How important was it for you to apply to college. And if so, did you just apply to one college or was it important to apply to many, and why? 

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Alum: So AP classes right now, I didn't get out of any classes by taking my AP classes, but they did help me a lot in terms of fall through credits. Basically what fall through credits are is at the end towards my graduation, I can basically apply those, so I have enough credits to graduate. Basically, I don't have to consider how many credits I am taking considering how many I have taken. But Mission APs definitely prepared me for the workload in college. It was the same workload, but in high school, we had a less amount of time to do it, so it felt a little bit more stressful, but in college, since it was more spaced out and you had more time in between classes to do work, it was a lot easier to do that already. 

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Neharika: So viewing the importance of AP classes when you were in high school. Were they important in your application process? Did it seem like some people were going to get into better colleges than you fi they took AP classes? 

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Alum: Definitely so. I feel like one thing that colleges do look at is the challenging courses you took. And they do compare you to a lot of the other students in your high school, so there was also that extra pressure to do as well as your other peers. Because oftentimes they are applying to the same schools as you and a lot of the time it was also the same major. So they would look and say, "Oh this person took AP Physics C while this person only took AP Physics 1." So if you were balanced out, this could be the distinction between whose going to get in. Even though it wasn't either-or, it still does have a lot of influence on their decision because to them it shows how much you can handle academically. So for higher pressure schools, they take in more into account because they have more workload and more pressurized classes if that makes sense.  

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Neharika: Do you have any friends who are taking AP classes back in your high school?

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Alum: I have a lot of friends who are taking AP classes back in high school. 

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Neharika: So what is the biggest piece of advice you would like to give them, whether it's them trying to deal with taking AP classes or choosing it for next year?

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Alum: I would tell them not to make their decision based off of other people, and to base it off of their own opinions and themselves. The only opinions they should really take are people that they really trust and their parents. Parents can also be very stressful in terms of pushing their kids to take more APs than possible. That's why I would also ask your tutors or anybody that really knows you and your workstyle. That's why I would even ask your past teachers if they think they can advise you in the right direction. But also in terms of doing well in those classes, make sure you know what you are expecting when you walk in because if you walk into a hard class not expecting it, you're going to be very thrown off. And you are not going to do well at the end of it. So it's just all about expectations, working for it, and whether or not you are willing to put in the right amount of time and work for yourself. 

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Neharika: In AP classes, you stated seeing other students facing stress and anxiety. My question is, what did you do if there was any situation that you saw your peers struggling with anxiety and stress? How did you try to help them? 

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Alum: We were all understanding of each other because we all knew that we were all kind of under the same kind of pressure and stress despite which kind of AP class it was. A lot of the friends in the same class, we would always talk about the class and how stressed we were. It helped to have someone to cope with. Even though we weren't exactly like, "Oh it will be all all right in the end!" We still had someone we were going with it through and we knew we weren't alone, so that was always good. Having a friend in each class so that you could work on it together and study together. So you are not alone at the end of the day. So you know everyone is suffering too. 

 

Neharika: As a college student, what was your view on the Mission experience? 

 

Alum: As a college student, the Mission experience was very rewarding. Like I said before the workload at Mission made college seem a lot better. I know at the beginning of college I was waiting for college classes to pick up and people would be stressing about whatever work was due, but I knew how I was going to handle it. My approach and the time I needed, and I knew exactly how to do it. So I have a lot of free time in comparison to what I had in high school and to my peers around me. Also, Mission made me a very motivated person. I definitely do a lot more in college, take initiative more, I find projects to do, I find clubs to join. I keep myself pretty busy. That's because I am used to doing that in high school too. But that's really good in college cause you need resumé builders. It's a good way to make friends and it's just rewarding overall. 

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Neharika: What were your external influences that you used to keep your standard high when you were in high school that helped you in college? 

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Alum: In high school, I used to look at a couple of my friends who did better than me. Definitely I had friends who were academically superior to me and I had friends who were extracurricular wise, superior than me. So I would compare myself different ways to them and hold myself up to that standard also. Myself as a person, I do hold myself to a high standard in general, so that also kind of helped. And my parents pretty much kept me on track.