Live and Learn

After four years of undergraduate studies, I'm graduating from UCSD this Sunday, June 22. It's a bittersweet feeling to finish such a defining chapter in my life. On one hand, I'm excited to just be done with school (most likely). On the other hand, I'm about to leave behind a place that I called home for four years and the atmosphere that came along with it.

Growing up in the San Gabriel Valley, I wasn't exposed to much. Our public schools didn't foster much creative and intelligent thinking, so you were pretty much on your own if you wanted to stray from the norm. A great friend of mine who I highly respect because of all the wise advice he gave, Eric Bautista, said that the the SGV is like a bubble, or a safety net, that people get trapped under because they like the comfort that it provided. He encouraged me to break the bubble and step outside of it. In these past four years, I saw another world.

I was reading the "What I've Learned" section of this month's GQ magazine and Snoop Dogg brought up an interesting point about society. He went to a predominately white high school where the only students of color were there because of their athletic abilities. He said it was during that time that he learned how to communicate with white people. I grew up in Monterey Park - the first city in the U.S. to have a minority group (Asian) be a majority of the population.
My high school was basically half Asian, half Latino. So, when I found out that my freshman year roommate was white, I was ecstatic for change. Living with him for a year, and in the dorms for that matter, enabled me learn more about rest of the world - the people outside of the bubble I was living in.

This four-year learning experience has been amazing.