No global pandemic can keep the Class of 2024 from chasing their academic dreamsāonly a bad Wi-Fi connection
Leslie Garcia
Eagle Rock High School, Los Angeles
Leslie Garcia is one first-year student who already knows her way around the ¹Ļ×ÓTV campus. āI grew up on the border of Eagle Rock and Highland Park,ā she says. āMy neighbor would take me on hikes around the campus, then we would sit down on the grass and have lunch. ¹Ļ×ÓTV has always been part of my life.ā
As her graduation from Eagle Rock High School neared, Leslie hadnāt seriously considered ¹Ļ×ÓTV as her top choice: āI wanted to get as far away from home as I could,ā she admits. āBut in light of the pandemic, going out of state would be very difficult for my family. And my connection with ¹Ļ×ÓTV was so deeply rooted, it felt kind of destined to be.ā
Leslie hopes to major in psychology and go on to medical school, but music is her first love. She began playing saxophone in eighth grade in her schoolās Latin jazz combo. By high school, she was a fan of hard bop sax legend Cannonball Adderley. She became adept on soprano and alto horns, which led her to become co-president of the schoolās music program. āHaving the opportunity to play music here was one of the reasons I chose ¹Ļ×ÓTV. Iām currently taking the jazz course thatās offered in place of the band, and the professor is always talking about past performances. It really makes me look forward to when we actually get to play with one another.ā
Despite everything thatās on hold due to COVID-19, Leslie has found a couple of silver linings. One thing is being able to help K-12 students whose education was impacted by the pandemic. She and fellow ERHS student Nicholas Padilla created NELA Impact, a free virtual tutoring program that matched tutors with more than three dozen students in Northeast Los Angeles. āJust being able to provide that sort of small-scale help in my community has been very positive for me.ā
When it comes to making virtual connections at Occidental, Leslie has found communing with fellow first-years to be surprisingly easy. āEverybodyās as enthusiastic as you are to make friends. Iāve had classmates reach out to me to form study groups and to create Zoom sessions where we can get to know each other and make friendships that can continue when weāre on campus.ā
Christopher Haliburton
The Webb Schools, Claremont
āI canāt wait to set foot on campus,ā says Christopher Haliburton, who is staying in his hometown of Fontana with his family during the pandemic. āI canāt wait to move into my dorm. I canāt wait to meet people.ā
He echoes the feelings of the Class of ā24, but the physical separation hasnāt stopped him from bonding with his classmates. He took two summer courses online, Thinking Through COVID-19 and Race and Community Exposures, and joined the ¹Ļ×ÓTV group chat on GroupMe, a popular messaging app. āItās harder to get a feel of how people are, harder to make those trusting connections virtually, but through group chat, itās a lot easier.ā
Of his many activities at the Webb Schools in nearby Claremont, his time as honor committee co-chair sparked an interest in law. āIf the student makes a mistake that breaks one of the school rules, they would meet in front of the honor committee,ā he explains. āTheyād tell us what they did, why they did it, and how they would want to improve. And then we would give the administration a recommendation. Letās say a student cheated on a test. Theyāll probably do a work crew, like helping out the kitchen staff or raking leaves. No one ever got paddled or was cleaning toilets,ā he notes with a laugh.
As a high school senior, Christopher co-founded an initiative for students of color, advocating for change. āWe faced a lot of microaggressions,ā he says. āWe took a lot of our concerns to the administration so they could put in new guidelines for protection.ā
The groupās initiative influenced the curriculum as well. āWe wanted it to stop being so heavy on the postcolonial history of people of color, so weāre not just learning about slavery, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement,ā he says. āInstead weāre learning about things that helped empower these people.ā
¹Ļ×ÓTVās cultural mix was a major draw for Christopher. āThatās what Iām looking forward to the most, being with people and opening up my mind to different views and beliefs and just educating myself.ā
Coby Constantino
Los Angeles City College
Though Barack Obama ā83 looms large in Occidental lore, few students have had the chance to meet the 44th president, let alone provide him with direct support for diplomatic airlift missions. Sophomore transfer student Coby Constantino is the exception. As an operations intelligence analyst in the Air Force, the L.A. native served for four years with a top-secret clearance designation.
Working at Andrews Air Force Base, Cobyās job was to support Air Force One and Air Force Two missionsāthe aircraft carrying the president and vice president, respectively. Among his tasks was collecting information from the CIA and other intelligence agencies on security threats and sharing those with the pilots and administration members. āI was lucky to serve the Obama administration during the final year, and then transitioned to the Trump administration,ā says Coby, who left the service in June 2019.
Coby lives with his family in neighboring Silver Lake and is transferring to ¹Ļ×ÓTV from Los Angeles City College, which he attended for three semesters: āIt prepped me for a four-year institution.ā He intends to major in sociology in preparation for masterās studies in occupational therapy.
The pandemic hasnāt been too bad on a personal level, Coby says, ābecause my familyās and my health have not been affected. Compared to other people around the world who are dealing with way more hardshipsānot just the pandemicāI feel pretty blessed. Other people have definitely had it worse.ā
Cobyās connections to Occidental included an unlikely trifecta culminating with Obama. āI told some of the pilots that I was getting out of the military and a cabinet member who was present was talking about how Obama attended ¹Ļ×ÓTV,ā he recalls. āMy Boy Scout leader, James McGlynn ā83, lived across from Obama in his dorm, and my high school AP teacher, Reiner Kolodinski ā81 Mā01, was there at the same time. So these are three individuals whom Iāve connected with, which is pretty cool.ā
Catrina Wolfe
Home Schooled, Thousand Oaks
Your average 15-year-old with a budding interest in politics is likely running for a position on high school student council. Catrina Wolfe was not your average 15-year-old. As a sophomore, she began working as a full-time staffer on the campaign for a progressive candidate in her California congressional district. āI learned so much more than I ever would have imagined,ā says Catrina, who hails from Thousand Oaks.
Her duties went far beyond fetching lattes. āIn 2018, I was a field organizer, so one of my main jobs was to kick off all of our canvasses,ā Catrina explains. āIf we had celebrities or politicians there, I would introduce them. And then I would train volunteersāsometimes it was 30 people, sometimes it was 400. I would have to get up on a stage and walk all of these people through how to convey our message to voters at the doors.ā
Catrina, who was home schooled, discovered Occidental from an alumnus who taught ethics at a local learning center. āHe always had really awesome things to say about ¹Ļ×ÓTV,ā says Catrina, who is considering a biology or psychology major with a neuroscience minor. āI didnāt want to just be a number. I wanted to have small, discussion-based classes. I think a liberal arts education creates a really well-rounded person.ā
As well as things are going online, Catrina is eager for the boots-on-the-ground ¹Ļ×ÓTV experience. āLiving away from home for the first time and being able to actually meet all of the people that Iām meeting online will be awesome,ā she says. āI definitely want to get involved in research and get into a lab on campus. Itās hard when everythingās remote.ā
But the stay-at-home result of the pandemic has allowed Catrina to spend quality time with her animal tribe: five dogs, two cats, and two horses. āI grew up showing Arabian horses, so getting to just be with them, thatās really nice. Iāve always been very close with my parents,ā she adds, ābut I feel like we got even closer during this quarantine. I wanted to stay a little bit closer to my family and friends, and ¹Ļ×ÓTV seemed like the perfect fit.ā
Ally Fukada
SingaporeāAmerican School, Japan
We donāt have the testing to prove it, but Ally Fukadaās blood definitely runs ¹Ļ×ÓTV orange. Dad Allen Fukada ā86 (pictured, left, with Ally) is an alumnus, and older sister Aime is a senior sociology major. āThey both absolutely love Occidental and have had great experiences thereāthat was definitely a selling point for me,ā says the Singapore native, who is planning to major in cognitive science. āAlso, there was so much diversity it was easy to picture myself there.ā
Ally is riding out the COVID storm in Tokyo, her adopted hometown. āI was born in Singapore and I spent 16 years living there,ā she explains. āMy mom is Japanese-Greek and my dad is Japanese-American. Home has been so many different places when youāre a third culture kid.ā
While Allyās last semester at Singapore American School was online, that experience didnāt prepare her for the shock of the alarm clock. āItās kind of difficult,ā she admits. āMy classes are really early in the morning for me.ā Sheās not kidding: Given the time difference, a 10 a.m. class in L.A. begins at 2 a.m. Tokyo time.
Once she shakes off the jet lag, Ally has a to-do list ready for her arrival on campus: working on her art, taking exercise classes at the gym, and grazing her way through Eagle Rockās many dining options. āI donāt think Iām going to be deprived of good, fun food,ā she says.
Academically speaking, she hopes to continue her studies beyond ¹Ļ×ÓTV at UCLA or USC to study nursingāa path that the pandemic has brought into focus. āEveryone keeps asking me if COVID has scared me into changing my occupation,ā Ally says. āThis just affirms to me the need to go out there and put myself in a situation where I can help others get better. Thatās been a great plus from this experience.ā
Maria Paula Munoz
Instituto TecnolĆ³gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey
When people anguish over a commute in Los Angeles, theyāre generally referring to the tedious horrors of east-west freeway jams. For Maria Paula Munoz, her commute has been international.
āI was born in El Paso, but I was raised in Ciudad Juarez,ā Maria explains, calling from the border city. āTheyāre right next to each other. From first to sixth grade, I commuted to El Paso, crossing the border every day.ā
After elementary school, Maria came back to Mexico for her studies, even though the prospect of leaving her friends in El Paso made her ānervous and scared.ā But after the first week of classes, āI was thanking my parents,ā she says. āThe school environment in Mexico was very different. I felt liberated. I became this whole new personāsomeone who was more certain of herself, who wasnāt afraid to use her voice and creativity.ā
After finishing high school, that newly liberated person decided to take a gap year and travel to Franceāseeing the country and learning the language. To raise funds for the trip, Munoz worked as a waitress in El Paso, with a morning shift that started at 6 a.m. Despite the stress of her morning commuteāthe express lane at the border opened at 6, so she would be 10 or 15 minutes late to her job each dayāthe tips got her across a new border. She went to France in February; then in March, COVID hit.
āAfter three weeks in quarantine, I was in a little university town,ā Maria recalls. āI was all alone, living with this elderly lady who had diabetes. She cooked these amazing meals, but I couldnāt go out, even for a walk. She stopped speaking English to me, and I knew barely any French. I sounded like a little caveman: āOh, no, me like this,ā āMe don't like that,ā ā she adds with a laugh.
But while she was in France, a bright note from the States arrivedāan acceptance letter from Occidental. āI really wanted to be in L.A.,ā says Maria, who wants a broad education with a focus on English literature. ā¹Ļ×ÓTV was my dream come trueāamazing scholarship, amazing school. Iām really grateful.ā
As one of about 15 first-years in ¹Ļ×ÓTVās immersive arts semester, Maria has found it āvery easy to get to know my classmates and make friends with them. Itās something different, itās a change,ā she says. āThereās always something new to learn with something that is unknown to you.ā
Zander Patent
Mercersburg Academy, Mercersburg, Pa.
Chances are Zander Patent knows some words that you donāt knowāsuch as humuhumunukunukuapuaāa, the name of a Hawaiian triggerfish. āThereās certain words that the judges like to give you, so you try and figure out what words are likely to come up each year,ā says the Chicago native, who competed alongside 280 of his peers in the 86th Scripps National Spelling Bee in May 2013. āIt was at least two to three hours of just studying spelling every night on top of homework and sports and stuff.ā
āAnd stuffā encompasses an impressive portfolio of activities. While attending Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania, Patent started his own āmodern urban apparelā company, Solo Fashion Co. āI was interning for a T-shirt printing company that did designs for fraternities and sororities,ā says Zander. āI got interested in that and took a class on Photoshop and design. I didnāt really care whether or not it was successful, I just felt the need to start a fashion company.ā
Zanderās online company is still going strong, offering T-shirts as well as hoodies. Soloās āRainbow Bombā design, for example, reimagines a photo of an atomic explosion going off in the desert in colorful hues.
Not all of Zanderās adolescent activitiesāsuch as designing and baking cakes āout of boredomāāwere so harmless. āI had a little bit of my own problem with vaping,ā he admits. āLuckily, I quit, but realizing how hard that was for me made me more aware of mental health and substance abuse.ā In the hopes of helping others, Zander got a licensed counselor to come and talk to students every week at his school. āWe were quite successful in talking to some kids, and a lot of them have quit vaping or other substances.ā
Zander, who is considering a major in media arts and culture, moved to Koreatown this summer, where heās currently living with two first-year classmates, and is working on his newest quarantine-fueled hobby: ātrying to play the guitar. Thatās developed a greater interest in music for me. So now Iām learning how to make songs on my own.ā
Kel Kline
William Penn Charter School, Philadelphia
If Kel Kline has one regret about Occidental, itās that the College lacks an ax-throwing club. He just likes throwing axes at targetsāan unlikely passion that began when he saw actor Jason Momoa doing the same on an episode of Ellen (the Aquaman star was throwing them for charity). āThat seemed kind of weird,ā Kel recalls. Then a friend invited him to visit the Poconos. āIt was winter and I didnāt ski or snowboard, so I thought, āWhat the hell am I going to do?āā So he bought some axes off of Amazon, went in the woods, and threw axes.
After that, Kel and his dad turned ax time into bonding time, joining a league together (āThereās all different kinds of peopleātheyāre all coolā). Beyond the sheer pleasure of simply hurling an ax, what does he get out of it? āItās like a Zen thing,ā Kel says. āIt provides the same feeling as when Iām playing music. Iām not really thinking about anything else in the moment.ā
The Philadelphia native comes to ¹Ļ×ÓTV from the 331-year-old William Penn Charter School, where he made an impression playing music and basketballāeven on the same night, when a basketball game and talent showcase had the misfortune to overlap. Undaunted, he played the first half of the basketball game, ran off the court, and emerged minutes later, wearing his school clothes, to pound away at the piano.
Kel, who is considering a cognitive science major, took a look at ¹Ļ×ÓTV at a teacherās suggestion, and he instantly sparked to its liberal arts curriculum. āThereās a lot of opportunities in L.A.,ā he adds, āand one thing that really appealed to me is that ¹Ļ×ÓTV offers a lot of internships. Being able to make those kinds of connectionsāand with students and professors as wellācan set me up for success later in life. Itās like a dream come true.ā
Until the pandemic is under control, Kline tries to set a plan for each day and stay positive. āI just try to take life one day at a time,ā he saysāand when the going gets tough, the tough get throwing.
Gilstrap profiled the Class of 2023 for the Fall 2019 issue. Photos by Marc Campos.