HIGH LIFE : A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Stanford Can Wait, Says Grad-to-Be, 14
Arash Alizadeh will graduate this year from Bolsa Grande High School in Garden Grove and plans to attend UCLA for a couple of years before moving on to Stanford. He wants to wait until he is old enough to get a driver’s license. He’s only 14.
Alizadeh moved with his parents from Tehran, Iran, to Westminster 2 1/2 years ago, learning English after arriving.
“I don’t have a problem communicating with people,” Alizadeh said, but added that he worked hard and was under a great deal of personal pressure to learn the language. “It was important to learn English to prepare me for the life I have ahead of me and to become a well-rounded person. I feel I do better under pressure.”
Alizadeh said he wants to be a neurosurgeon and hopes someday to become the country’s surgeon-general. “I plan to enter politics at a certain level,” he said.
The ability to master schoolwork is not a matter of intelligence, he said.
“I think I have worked hard and I believe the culture I was raised in and the support of my mother and father has had a great deal to do with it.”
“A friend in need is a friend to dodge.”
--Unknown
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
