Sebastian will study either computer science or mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University - College Station or the University of Texas at San Antonio.
How have SAISD schools shaped you into the person you are today?
I’ve been in SAISD since pre-K. I went to Baskin Elementary, and then I went to Longfellow Middle School. I always had good teachers. Especially in my formative years in primary education, I always had excellent teachers that were interested in teaching and they were good at it and they could help me get my foundation. I think that I only really started trying in terms of education around the third grade, when my third grade teacher, Marion Carty, helped put me on the right track, especially in mathematics. In elementary school, that’s also when I got an interest in reading because of the librarians there.
In general at Jefferson, there’s just something about it that has a great character. You go here and sometimes you don’t appreciate the fact that it’s a school with a proper architectural design. It’s a school where people have pride in being here. I went to the Fiesta parade with band, and there’s people in the crowd that are yelling out their classes from 30, 40 years ago. It’s just something representing a time in life they really enjoyed.
Who has been most influential to you in your education this far?
First and foremost, it’s just my parents. I’ve seen their successes and their failures and I take their experiences as my learning. They work hard. My mom had to change professions when she emigrated here. And my dad emigrated here at my age. I don’t know how he did that. I wouldn’t be able to do that. They inspire me to show you that the place where I am, where I was born, and just lucky enough to be here, is where people are willing to leave everything to go to, a place with such great opportunity that people are surprised to hear there are poor people here. There’s a lot of opportunity here, and I think it is something that is hard to recognize when you’ve never had the perspective from other places where there’s just less things you can do, and life is more tragic because you are kind of stuck in this one pathway. It really moves me to not waste the opportunity I have just by being here, not even by my own choice. No one chooses where they are born.