#8 Peer Interview for the “Mental Health Mentoring Series”

Gap Year + New York University starting this Fall, majoring in Film and TV Production, and graduate of Gunn High School in 2024

In high school, what was your overall stress or anxiety level from a scale of 1-3:  2 - Moderate

After high school, what is your overall stress or anxiety level from 1-3: 1 - Low

What contributed to your stress or anxiety in high school?  Adapting to a public high school after attending a private school K-8 and not knowing many people.

What contributes to your stress or anxiety after high school?  My gap year hasn’t been without stress, but it’s been everything I want to do, and no homework and little responsibilities. I had stress mostly when I was working at home trying to make-up the money I spent on all my travels. I’ve gained lots of memories, stories, experiences, and knowledge from the gap year.

What were your favorite high school activity(ies)?  Lacrosse, video production, soccer 

What are your favorite activity(ies) after high school?  Gap year road trip in the USA (YouTube: Road Trip), Peru hiking, and Amazon jungles. 

How have pressures you faced in high school differ from your experience afterwards? 

No homework and stuff I didn’t want to do, and it felt pointless doing them during my gap year. Also, I now have good friends so I’m not stressed about social situations like I was when I was a freshman in high school. I didn’t feel ready to go straight to college—mainly because I wanted a break from school and a strict routine.

How have your social relationships changed from high school to now? 

It’s been harder to keep in touch with close friends with everyone off in college, but I still see my friends a good amount. It takes more of an effort to keep in touch. 

When you are stressed or anxious, what techniques, rituals, or ways do you manage?  

I don’t have any good techniques, but I try to be grateful for all the things I do have. Life could be a lot harder than it is. I would also highly recommend a gap year to anyone, who like me didn’t want to go straight to college and has some other goals they would like to achieve beforehand.

Knowing what you know now, if you were back in high school, what might you do differently? 

Branch out more, be more vulnerable, take more risks, try a little harder in classes I was interested in. 

What would be your best overall advice to high school students? 

Try to find people that you are comfortable around and push you to become a better version of yourself. If you go to Gunn or Paly, I would prioritize finding something you like to do instead of taking all AP classes. Of course if you enjoy school, then you should be doing that, but I think most people take really hard classes just to impress their peers and parents and out of pressure. I think high school is more important for developing your own personality instead of homework all the time. It’s easy to get caught up in competition with grades or other things in high school, but when I did my traveling this gap year, I realized that your character and will are the most important things. I learned that the world is filled with people, who have vast experiences and ideas.