Facing the future as a young person is exciting. And daunting.
During this eighth year of The Seattle Times Student Voices project, we invited students to share their stories and experiences about postsecondary planning, and whether they’re pursuing college, a job or another aspiration. We wanted young people to give readers insights into what they want for their futures and the types of help and roadblocks they’re encountering along the way.
This fall, we’re working with a student seeking a Navy career, someone hoping to combine multiple interests into a meaningful life, an aspiring clinical psychologist and a community college student striving toward grad school.
Even if some of their goals seem succinct, none of them — like many of us — have a perfectly clear road map for how to get there. Some of them are grappling with the choice between pursuing what they think they should be doing to be successful versus opportunities that speak to their passions.
“It’s so hard to narrow down one focus, or pick just one marketable skill and try to survive in our capitalist economy,” said Hannah Smith, an aspiring clinical psychologist. “Many people are impressed by my seeming ability to have it all figured out at such a young age, but I honestly don’t know what the heck I’m doing most of the time.”
We hear you, Hannah.
Readers, you can look forward to hearing more this school year from Smith and Student Voices collaborators: Maggie Barton, Leo Choi and Jonathan Feng.
Here’s more about this current cohort of contributors:
Jonathan Feng, Bellevue senior who wants to combine biomedical engineering and entrepreneurship
I am Jonathan Feng, a senior at Bellevue High School. At school, I lead the medical club, write for the Bellevue Barque (the school’s newspaper), run for the varsity cross-country team, and tinker in the robotics workshop. Outside of school, I love to ski, practice my painfully mediocre piano skills, and watch good movies with friends. In the future, I hope for an adventurous life and an impactful career in health care.
Maggie Barton, college hopeful
My name is Maggie Barton. I am 17 years old and a senior at Roosevelt High School in Seattle. I am the features editor of my school newspaper and in my free time — to be completely honest — I just hang out with my friends and my mom. In the future, I hope to: go to college, have lots of fun, have a career I genuinely enjoy, try a million different things and prioritize filling my life with people and places I value. And also adopt a pit bull — I’ve always wanted to do that.
Hannah Smith, aspiring clinical psychologist
My name is Hannah Smith and I’m a 15-year-old sophomore at Tacoma Community College pursuing a psychology major. When not writing long research papers or journalistic articles, I enjoy working on poetry, theater, and dance. In the future, I hope to help amplify others’ voices through my writing and clinical practice.
Leo Choi, future naval flight officer
My name is Leo Choi, a senior at Bellevue High School. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in South Korea until I moved to the States at the age of 8. Passionate about cultural sensitivity, I have founded Friends of Korea, which seeks to invite different cultural clubs within the community to share, understand, and find similarities. I also lead a team that translates the school newspaper into Korean and distributes it to the school’s Korean community. I am also the team captain for the boys swim and dive team! In the future, I hope to further implement different methods of accessibility to information and education to increase education quality.
Bookmark st.news/studentvoices2024 for updates on these students and their stories.
Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately reflected the profiles and aspirations of Jonathan Feng and Hannah Smith.