Laura Gurrola

Senior Retrospective Draft

Good morning to all of you here, my fellow classmates, teachers, and administrators.My name is
Laura Gurrola and I am here to reflect and share with you my experience as a student here at VISA for the
past four years. We seniors have reached that point in the year in which we have to reflect on the ways
that we have grown as students and as global citizens, which also means that we are only a few weeks
away from graduating and beginning a new chapter in life. The fact that we will have finally achieved our
goals of graduating and will probably be moving on to different places hasnt quite hit me, but that hasnt
stop me from thinking about the past four years here. High school was definitely a rollercoaster ride for
me, like how it probably was for many of you: making friends, losing friends, having fun, having
arguments, and lets not forget the slow decreasing number of hours slept per night as each year went by.
Either way, being here at VISA has taught me so many things, especially knowledge and skills that I
know I will be applying for many years after high school.
During my freshman year, I completed various projects that taught me a variety of skills and
where I also gained knowledge on different subjects. One of the most memorable projects for me was the
Greek mythology project that was assigned to my English class by Ms. Burnett. For this project, each
student was individually assigned a Greek god or goddess to research the story behind their characteristics
and then present that information to the rest of the class. I was assigned Demeter, the goddess of nature
and gained knowledge throughout this project once I had completed my research and learned about her
daughter, Persephone, the wife of the Greek god Hades, and what they had meant to the Greeks . Through
my global citizen skills, I was able to apply my research on Demeter and Persephone and recognized the
perspectives of the ancient Greeks and their reasonings towards natural causes if the. The ancient Greeks
had not yet gained any scientific reasoning to explain the natural occurrences that happened in the natural
world, so they opted for myths. I allowed my mind to create a perspective as if I were a Greek from
ancient times and was able to understand that in a world where not many things were explained through
facts, myths and stories would result to being the go-to ways of explaining those natural causes. For

example, the goddess Demeters daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped by Hades, god of the underworld,
but Demeter was able to make a deal with him in which he would allow Persephone to visit her mother on
the living Earth. To the ancient Greeks, this helped explain the changings of spring and winter. As a
global citizen, I was able to understand this concept by recognizing the perspective of those from another
time period in another country and actually communicated my ideas when I had to present my
information to my class.
My sophomore year also contained many projects that helped me grow as a student and as a
global citizen. One of those projects was the one assigned by Mr. Dewaele in world history in which we
had to write multiple letters, each written as different characters in situations during World War II. This
project allowed me to gain actual knowledge about events that occurred during the war and investigate
the world by learning about the ways that different countries became involved and participated in the war.
One of the most important aspects from this project was the fact that I was able to recognize multiple
diverse perspectives through the different characters that I wrote through. For example, I wrote as a
French woman writing to her boyfriend that was fighting and in another letter I wrote as a German soldier
waiting to go home. Writing as these different characters allowed me to understand the views from both
sides of the war and gave me a better understanding that war affects both sides of the battlefields greatly,
not just the winning or losing side.
During that same year, I was assigned the bucket list blog project in my honors English class with
Ms. Mohr that helped me with my skills for academic success and college and career readiness. For this
project, we had to create a bucket list with at least 100 things we wanted to do before we die. After
making the list, we had to create our own blog and manage it ourselves. Once I created the blog, I had to
keep it updated once I would complete one of the things off of my list and post pictures or comments on
my blog. By learning how to create my blog and learning how to keep it updated, I gained skills for
academic success. Not only that, but learning how to create a blog prepared me for college and future
jobs. Our world of technology had been growing dramatically at a very fast pace, so learning new skills
based on technology puts me in the same loop as many others. The skills that I learned from this project

can also help me for future projects or assignments in college and in future jobs that might require me to
be very tech savvy or at least know basic technology skills, like most job now require.

Since my freshman year, I have been a member of GSA, a group that is focused on the
acceptance and equality of the LGBT community. During my senior year, I took action with GSA
when we signed up for the 29th Annual Los Angeles AIDS Walk, an annual walk-a-thon
established to get the Los Angeles community to walk and raise money for the funding to find a
cure for AIDS. As members of GSA, we knew that the LGBT community was a group that has
been affected by AIDS severely. In order to help fund for the AIDS cure research, GSA members
were encouraged to tell our fellow classmates about the AIDS walk and to also encourage them
to join. The higher amount of participants at the walk, the more money that would be raised for
research. I reminded and encouraged many of my classmates to sign up for the walk and
explained to them how they would be helping people with AIDS and the change they would help
spur if they were to attend the AIDS walk. Once we were in Los Angeles ready for the start of
the walk, we were all determined to push ourselves and complete all six miles of the walk. After
walking for consecutive long hours, all the members of GSA had finally finished all miles. Later
on throughout the day we learned that at the 29th Los Angeles AIDS walk, the community raised
$2.5 million because of all the participants at the walk. Since I was a part of the AIDS Walk, I
was a person who took action by contributing to all the money raised. Before this walk, I had
never known about any type of community walk that raises money for the AIDS cure research.
After the walk, I learned that there are many ways to contribute to the research, like attending
community walk-a-thons, donating to research groups, and being a part of any more groups that
raise money. Before the walk, I also didn't know much about the people being affected with
AIDS. After the walk, I began to research more and found out that most victims of AIDS range
from the ages 19-24 and that there is a high amount of people affected with AIDS in California.

During the beginning of this year, all seniors were introduced to a personality mask
during our English class. During this project, I had to create a mask based off of my personality
and how I have come to gain those personality traits which allowed me to recognize perspective.
Before I started working on the physical aspect of the project, which was the mask, I started
asking my close friends and family members about the personality traits I carry and possible
origins of those traits. One of the personality traits that I received from my parents was hesitant. I
allowed myself to listen to my parents reasoning and understand why they believed that I am
hesitant. Hearing and understanding the opinions of my friends and family helped me get a better
understanding of who I am and how I have come to be the person I am today. I was able to
absorb the opinions and information that they had about me and take their perspectives in order
to create my mask. Not only did I recognize perspective when focusing on myself, I also gained
and understood others perspectives when it came to the final stage of the personality mark
project. My classmates and I were given the chance to share part of our personality mask with
each other and help each other understand how we have each been shaped by past experiences
and people in our lives. Through the sharing of the masks, I learned aspects and stories of my
classmates that caused me to laugh, cry, and some that even left me with a shocked face.
Now that I have shared with you all how I have grown as a global citizen and student, I
would like to give the underclassmen some advice that will hopefully help you throughout the
rest of your time here in high school. First and foremost, you should all take your first two years
in high school very seriously. Freshman and sophomore year might seem very easy to many, or
very difficult to get used, but it does get harder. I dont want to scare you all and make you think
that senior year will not be fun, it will be fun, but it wont be as fun if you dont take your work
as seriously from the start. Many students believe that they can slack off during their first two

years and pick up the slack during junior year or maybe even senior year, but all four years do
matter. I came into highschool believing that colleges dont really look at the first two years
when it comes to grades or the activities the student participated in, but they do. The harder you
work throughout all four years, the more colleges are going to want you. Not only that, but by
the time you reach your senior year youll already be prepared and able to handle the hectic work
that tends to come along.
Another point of advice Id like to tell you all is to get involved in clubs, programs, and
movements in the school or community. Being involved in different clubs and programs really
gets you involved in current events and are major aspects to college applications. Colleges love
to see that students are involved in different things in school and their community because they
like to know that their possible future students care about what is going on around them. Not
only that, but being involved in clubs like ASB, yearbook, Student Advisory Council, and other
clubs will give you the chance to create change or have your ideas heard. Many students always
complain about the ways that some events are planned or disagree with certain decisions made,
but they are always offered a chance to get their voices heard too and try to make changes, you
just have to go out there and be a part of things. So I just want all you freshman, sophomores,
and juniors to think about what you have done so far during your high school years and how you
could make your future years better and make them matter much more.
Now on to the teachers and advisors, I would like to advise you all on the actual conversations on
college and ways to take being a global citizen to another level. First, Id like to thank you all on how
involved many of you are during the college process during senior year, especially when it comes to the
personal statements and helping keeping us on track for graduation. But, I do recommend that you start
talking about colleges with your students much earlier in their high school years. Sometimes the entire
college talk during senior year can be very overwhelming and not seem like enough time to think about

future college decisions. I would be lying if I said that I applied to some colleges only because of their
location and other aspects that I knew a little about. Dont get me wrong, I got accepted into my first
choice and have decided to attend that school, but I wish I would have had more time to learn about other
options like out of state colleges or even more privates. I do understand that we as students can research
all that information ourselves, but its much more helpful and less stressful when teachers and
administrators ease us students into the water. I also do encourage that teachers talk more about out-ofstate colleges and inform students much more on college options besides Cal States and UCs. Encourage
students to think outside the box.
My second and last piece of advice would be to have students come in closer contact with other
students from other countries. The Chinese student exchange program is a great opportunity for students
to visit another country and meet foreign students, but only a small group of students gets to experience
that. I myself wanted to visit China, but didnt have the financial means like many other students dont.
So I highly encourage you teachers and administrators to have our VISA students come in contact with
students from other parts of the world every so often. This doesnt even have to be in person; Technology
like Skype or FAcetime could play a major role in this. This would incorporate both technology and
global communications for students, killing two birds with one stone.