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The Sunset High Scholarship Commitee, led by Cheryl Hefty, College and Career Coordinator, has selected the first 4 recipients of The Sunset High Class of 61 Scholarship Program. This is year one of a program that will run for a total of five years.
The recipients were asked to write an scholarship essay. The prompt for the scholarship essay was, "The Class Motto of the Class of 1961 was a Maori saying: 'E Tipu E Rea,' which loosely translates to 'Grow and prosper according to the needs of your generation.' They were asked to look ahead to when they will be 75-80 years old and what will they tell future teenagers about their high school self and how their experiences at Sunset helped them serve the needs of their generation?
Following the students essay are the comments from their instructors.
Midori Mori
For many years, I’ve been conflicted with the following question: to follow my passions or to develop my strengths? At the University of Oregon, I didn’t need to compromise; I’m free to pursue a global studies major out of curiosity, and engage in discussion based classes with a diverse set of minds for my 400 Level-Colloquium course! I can minor in English just out of love, and learn Korean (my would-be fourth language) in between! But I also know that while I’ve had plenty of exposure to teaching, I have yet to discover the full potential of my life.
I am a product of diplomacy: I am the sacrifices my grandmother made to bring her family from Taiwan to America, my father’s stories about growing up Japanese in Utah, and also the principles of the American identity. Imagine if I could tie nations together through trade, bring peace from the East to the West? Am I getting ahead of myself? Probably. But that didn’t stop me in high school, and I doubt it will stop me once I get to college.
I know I would be sitting in the front row of philosophy class debating ethics with a classmate; I would be up at 5 a.m just to try bouldering at the Rock District, but most importantly I would finally get to be in an environment that celebrates the learning process with faculty that understand me. Something that I never could get at the typical stuffy Ivy League school, lies here at U of O’s honors college. And I’m more than ready to begin exploring it.
So what do I wish to see in my future? Perhaps a world where we are a little less concerned with ourselves and a little more giving to the people who surround us. If anything has become increasingly clear to me throughout my years spent at Sunset High School, it is indeed the fact that I am only 10% my own success and 90% backed by the best. As I head into the next chapter of my life, I have begun to realize that part of the responsibility of age is embracing humility. It’s a quality that I hope to carry with me as a future leader, athlete, and citizen of the world; this is what my time at Sunset has shaped me to believe.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, Midori is one the best students I’ve had.
Midori goes above and beyond academics. What I admire most about Midori’s passion for learning, is rather than thinking how can I get an A, when presented with an assignment; Midori considers, how can I learn and be better?
There are few students in one’s career that change you so deeply, and she is one of them.
Jenna Anderson
My experiences at Sunset have motivated me to follow my passions of helping both people and our planet. Through science classes at Sunset I have realized how important it is to care about our planet and help other people. I will tell future teenagers to pursue something they are passionate about. This way the society will be full of passionate, happy, and talented people. This advice could be extremely beneficial to generations going forward so people spend more time enjoying life and doing something they are good at rather than sticking to societies "standards" and "expectations".
For the past year I have gotten to know Jenna while she was in my Composition/Literature 11 class, and now as an AVID Peer Tutor. I asked Jenna to consider being a Peer Tutor and luckily she saw the benefit to joining our AVID family. What made me ask Jenna was due to her attention to the learning process and her ability to work through difficult situations. Jenna is a fighter and I wanted her to be a mentor to other students.
She shows a maturity and mental toughness that she will carry forward to life after high school.
Lovely Narisetty
When I am older and looking back at my high school experience at Sunset, I would tell future teenagers about the opportunities I was granted by my school. Through Sunset, I have been able to take the classes I am passionate about to further my education to pursue my dream of being a Physician's Assistant. My favorite class I took at Sunset was Anatomy and Psychology! I was also privileged enough to join the Health Careers Program in which I was able to obtain a Medical Assistant certification and a plethora of invaluable clinical/patient skills. My experiences in Health Careers alone has reminded me why I wanted to become a PA in the first place- to serve the needs of not only my generation, but future, and past generations well. Being in the healthcare field is about giving back to those in need and helping communities receive the quality care they deserve. Since freshman year, I was driven to achieve my goals which has manifested in academic excellence all throughout my high school career. I would tell future teenagers my academic rigor was a direct result of the excitement I felt about the classes I was taking. The skills I have learned from being so academically driven will transfer into being a successful undergrad and graduate school student as well. Overall, my high school experiences like taking the classes I was genuinely interested in has set me up for success in that it aided me in my pathway to becoming an established professional in the medical field. These experiences and who I became as a result are directly responsible for my ability to serve the needs of my generation through my passion for healthcare.
Lovely is kind, driven, a hard worker, and an all around great person. I have seen Lovely interact with her peers in a variety of settings, and I know I can count on her to complete any task and help lead those around her. Lovely sees the world as a place where all people can grow and thrive, but only if everyone is aware of current societal expectations and how to change those for the better. She is a quality human being who is an asset to any organization of which she is a part.
Auveen Hajarizadeh
When I am 75-80 years old and reflecting back on my experience at Sunset High School, I believe I will tell them about the greatest challenge of my peers and I’s generation: illness. Even as modern medicine has helped mitigate the spread of many communicable diseases, the COVID-19 pandemic has crippled our community; many families are struggling economically, businesses are struggling to stay open, and schools are struggling to keep their students in-person. The issues that the COVID-19 pandemic has created are prevalent and unignorable. In my generation, recovery from this struggle is the greatest issue that I believe we need to address because it will ultimately define what our lives look like.
Over the course of my four years in high school, I believe my experiences have allowed me to address the struggles that have arisen as a result of this problem. I have worked around the struggles of the pandemic to raise money for pediatric cancer research and to conduct holiday food drives, and have grown as a leader, allowing me to better serve my community today and as I grow older.
In my time at Sunset High School, I made it my goal to remain as active as possible in my local community. This is why I joined the Sunset High School Student Government, and won positions as Sophomore Class President, Junior Class President, and All-Student-Body President during my Senior year. My two most valuable community experiences — the “Winter Holiday Drives” and “Cram the Stands” — came through this Student Government program.
In my sophomore and junior year, we organized two “Winter Holiday Drives,” a community donation drive to help families in need during the pandemic. After one year as an active team member on this project, I felt confident to lead the drive during my senior year.
During these drives, we collected food items for 35 families. Additionally, I created an anonymous online form to inquire about toys and personal items we could procure for them. Because of my fluency in Spanish, I also translated the form to Spanish, giving more families access to the service we were offering.
Families in our community have relied on school services now more than ever. Even when we could not collect food and money from students during online school, we hosted several drive-through events for community members to safely drop off donations. Ultimately, the drives were huge successes: we packaged and delivered the requested items to all 35 families. We even received such generous donations that we could offer local food pantries an abundance of extra contributions.
Another one of my most significant experiences in this program was “Cram the Stands,” an annual basketball-game event that I have helped organize and promote for the past three years. Our goal was to help raise money for an adolescent cancer patient in our community.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no way to safely “cram the stands.” Still, we wanted to help a patient, so we creatively restructured the event. We borrowed a church parking lot, built an outdoor stage, and invited families to watch and listen to performances from their safely distanced cars. The parking lot was filled, and we raised nearly $14,000.
This particular event holds a great deal of personal significance: over the past three years, I have lost three family members to breast cancer, and a fourth continues to battle the disease.
My numerous and varied roles in these positions have prepared me for leadership even beyond Sunset High School. Each year has built upon the last: the size and scale of my projects have grown, as has my knowledge of successful management and event planning. I am eager to bring my enthusiasm and experience of problem solving and bringing my community together for a greater good to the University of Oregon, where I plan to attend college. In college, I plan to continue my track record of leadership by deeply engrossing myself in clubs that revolve around health care for community members in Eugene, and potentially joining the Student Government at the University of Oregon.
Beyond college, I hope to be a doctor and an active leader in my local community, helping people live healthier, better lives. Ultimately, this is the legacy I want to leave as a leader, because I believe that is how I can best address the problems that illness has created for my generation. The experiences and skills that I fostered as a leader at Sunset High School will not only help me address the problems I believe are most prevalent to our generation, but hopefully allow me to be the best community member I can possibly be.
Auveen Hajarizadeh is my favorite person at Sunset! He makes connections with people easily and puts forth effort to retain those connections. Everyone knows Auveen and adores him from the Custodian to the IB teachers to the students in special programs and not because he’s the student body president. Auveen puts diligent effort towards what he values. He’ll gladly attend any club fundraiser to help them bring in top dollar or chip in an extra set of hands for a project. He’s at virtually every sporting event as a “Super Fan.” He values connections with the people in his community. He would never say community is his super power, I think it is.
Auveen is a prominent member in all of Sunset’s communities. He will continue to be a leader, a fan & friend for everyone in the college community of whomever is lucky enough to have him. He’s an amazing kid, I can only imagine his positive influence as an adult.
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