Andre Nguyen

he/him

Class of

2016

I graduated EVHS in 2016; I would say I did a decent mix of AP and non-AP classes in school (0 APs in 9th grade, 1 AP in 10th grade, 3 APs in 11th, 3 APs in 12th) and hung out in a variety of crowds back then. High school was a very enjoyable yet very difficult time, due to just juggling so many things at once (classes, home life, extracurriculars, not really knowing myself as a person). Things took time, but did improve in college, especially as I found a more accepting crowd in the later half of college (I am bisexual and have been out since 9th grade, and a lot of other queer guys at EV at the time were in the closet and only came out years later, so I had queer woman friends, but no guys to relate to back then and shouldered that alone, so to speak). I graduated from UCSB in 2020 and got a master's degree from UCLA in 2021, where I've since worked as a full-time instructor for a year, lived in New York City while working remotely at an education public policy think tank based in DC, and currently work in public health research at UCLA.

If you could give your high school self a piece of advice, what would it be?

The same way that your high school self is living a life that was hard for your middle school self to properly imagine in terms of the details, because you were too young back then to picture it, that pretty much continues to happen once you enter college. And then it happens again each year of college. And then it happens again after you leave college. And then will probably keep happening. I'm now 24 and it keeps happening; even though I pay bills and taxes and have friends who are getting married, in a lot of ways I still strongly remember and feel like the same 10th grade guy in AP World History trying to do my Cornell notes before the due date, even though that was 9 years ago and I've obviously done things far beyond an AP class (as that's considered college-freshman-level difficulty when I now have a master's degree).

It's ok for life to be hard then, things don't always get linearly harder as you grow up, even as classes get more complicated and decisions become more adult, you also rise to the occasion. High school was still one of the hardest times of my life, and I think that's ok to say. Because the future is hard to truly imagine in an accurate way, don't think that your projection of the future is necessarily accurate. In high school, I thought if X happened in the present, then Y outcome would happen and that would affect my life greatly, but that wasn't true. There were times where I was so unhappy, I thought I'd never have a better lifestyle or be happy, and I was wrong. I thought school and life would just get harder and harder, and I was wrong. Things get more COMPLICATED, but not always harder.

Did you have any goals that pushed you throughout high school? How did you approach those? Are you still pursuing them now that you're out of high school? If not, why?

I just wanted to enjoy my time with my friends most. I strived to get good grades and high SATs and be president of Interact Club and all of that, but what I really wanted most was, after all those things were accomplished, get to spend quality time with my friends, be in places where I can make new friends, and have the types of connections with people where I miss them and want to be with them.

It's a special thing to have a friendship that you'd fly across the country, the world, or just spend time with. We all might go on our own paths after graduation, but you can keep people in your life if you want and take the time to do so (mutually!) but it's all the more special that you're actively choosing to do that.

What experience had the greatest impact on you at EVHS?

Being part of cross country team and talking to my teammates in between practices, being part of interact club and tabling/running events/putting projects together, like the Winterfest tabling where we sold food, just putting that whole operation together of getting ingredients, getting cookware, cooking, selling, counting the money, doing all that with my friends, and coworkers-turned-friends, at the time I thought it was unserious kid stuff, but looking back, those are not that different from what we do as adults, and are some of the most fun experiences I remember. It felt like I was living in a TV show!

Have you kept some relationships with the people you were with in high school?

Yes! The girl who sat next to me (randomly assigned seating) in 10th grade English class, we didn't hang out much in high school, but we hung out 1 time 2 years after graduating high school because we were both in town, then proceeded to lose touch for 4 years, and now have since reconnected and have talked on the phone almost weekly for the last year. We always held mutual respect for each other all this time, but it was not until we both finished school and found out footings in life (me in Los Angeles, her in Pittsburgh, PA, as she went to Carnegie Mellon University and stayed there afterwards) that we've been able to dedicate the time to be close friends. We both appreciate the friendship immensely.

The girl I was on every sports team in 10th grade PE with, I got closer to her the summer after high school graduation before college began, and we then lost touch for 3 years, reconnected in 3rd year of college, and she's been one of my best friends since. I traveled to see her in Philadelphia (where she has since moved for work after finding a job through online search) last year and that was easily one of the most memorable experiences of my 2022!

One girl I was on the cross country team with (but we didn't talk THAT much then, I mostly knew her because she was on my team and friends with the guy who sat next to me in 11th grade math) ended up befriending one of my good friends at Yerba Buena High School. I met the Yerba Buena friend through Interact Club events (we were both president of our respective clubs) and they met in the dorms as UCLA freshmen. Those two are now best friends, and live together in Seattle 7 years after high school ended, and because I knew them both individually before they met, I'm friends with both of them! We're a friend group, and we just made plans last week for them to come visit me in LA, and I might visit them in Seattle when I have time. I never expected those two to meet, much less form a friend group with me upon them realizing I knew both of them.

I did lose touch with my old lunch group because we became different people in the 7 years since high school graduation, but there was no feuding or fighting, just a mutual lack of interest. It's all love, though.

All this to say, some of my best friends from high school are people I didn't expect at all, and the people I did expect to stay close with, I didn't! Life is funny like that, but it's never too late to make things happen.

Do you still live in San Jose? Why or why not?

No, I have more family in Southern California, and I work down here in Los Angeles. I don't know what job I'd be doing if I went back to San Jose.

What was your primary academic/extracurricular focus in high school?

I didn't know what subject I liked in high school. I liked the concept of school, like having classmates, teachers, getting to learn, recess, extracurriculars, I still love all of that. But my main "focus" in terms of my activities was being president of Interact Club. I ended up going into science research in college rather than clubs and student life, so it was definitely a left turn, but 3 years into college, I became an orientation leader and definitely used a lot of the skills I developed in Interact Club as an officer! I also was on the team (was one of the slowest guys on the team, I was on there to beat my own records, nobody else's, and socialize) and that's pretty much it as far as extracurriculars. I thought I was going to be a psychology major after liking an online college-level free psychology class I took through EdX.org, it was taught by UC Berkeley professors, but I ended up majoring in environmental science after realizing I was kind of good at biology and chemistry but didn't want to major in either of those subjects, but instead something that used those subjects in an applied way to solve problems.

Are you in college? If so, which college and what major? Are you working? If so, where? If you're not in either of these, what are you doing now?

I went to UCSB for my bachelor's degree, receiving a degree in physical geography (ocean science emphasis). I started out as an environmental science major but changed in my 2nd year (they're pretty similar though, lol, I basically just changed from talking about renewable energy and sustainability to talking about climate science). Then I got a master of arts from UCLA in education policy (remember when I said I liked the concept of school, classes, classmates, extracurriculars? Well, I ended up doing research on those topics). Now I work in public health researching HIV, and also used to work in education policy in Washington, DC.