Money, Fame Among Top Grads’ Goals

Ask Ventura County’s public high school valedictorians what they hope to get out of life, and most won’t rank going to college as much of an accomplishment. That is a given; a mere footnote in talk about careers, Nobel prizes and making more money than their parents.

But at least one top graduate doesn’t take the opportunity for higher education for granted. When Gaby Interiano leaves Oxnard for Berkeley this fall, she will be the first person in her family of eight to attend a university.

“Just to say I was planning to attend college was something my family was proud of,” the Hueneme High School senior said. “But it’s an even greater accomplishment now that I’m really going.”

Interiano is the fifth of six children her El Salvadoran-born parents raised in Oxnard. Although she is the first to go to college, Interiano said her family encouraged her to make it happen.

“What pushed me harder was knowing I’d be the last person in my family who could get a chance to go,” she said. (Her younger brother does not plan to pursue higher education.) “They are all very proud and happy it was me who could do what they couldn’t.”

Interiano, who wants to be a doctor, said she always knew she would go to college, but being named one of her school’s three valedictorians was a surprise.

She said she was so determined to get the right credits and grades for her college application that she didn’t realize her efforts were adding up to a valedictorian honor.

“It wasn’t until the principal shook my hand that I realized all the work I did paid off,” Interiano said. “The payoff is the self-satisfaction that I could beat the odds and make it this far.”

Asked to describe their hopes and dreams, more than 70 public school valedictorians throughout Ventura County listed aspirations that ranged from curing cancer to founding the next Microsoft.

Spike Loy, for example, is serious about his mission to wipe out diabetes.

Loy, a valedictorian at Nordhoff High School in Ojai, has been a diabetic since the age of 7. His younger brother was also diagnosed with the disease.

“It’s a huge part of my life, but manageable,” said Loy, who must take five insulin injections a day and monitor his diet. “Right now I consider it a minor inconvenience, and it doesn’t keep me from doing anything.”

Loy will attend Stanford University in the fall, and plans to study genetic engineering to help find a cure for his disease.

This won’t be the first time he has worked for the cause. When Loy was younger, his family volunteered their Ojai ranch to raise pigs for cell research at UCLA. The aim was to see if pig cells could be transplanted in humans for a possible cure.

“We raised the pigs and then slaughtered them,” Loy said. “My mom removed their pancreas, and drove the organs to UCLA in a solution that kept them going. My job was to time it from when the pig was killed to when the pancreas was removed.”

Loy considers the scientific pig farm in his backyard as the impetus for his career plans.

“I felt like I was really helping to find a cure, and that definitely sparked my interest in genetics,” he said.

Youn Jin Kim, a valedictorian at Royal High School in Simi Valley, said the first thing she wants to accomplish is to send her parents on a “fantasyland vacation.”

Kim, who was born in South Korea, said her parents grew up poor and sacrificed later in life to give their children opportunities that they themselves didn’t have.

“I just want to return the favor and thank my parents,” Kim said. “We had a hard time financially this year, but my parents still thought of sending me to college as a priority, and that was touching.”

Pop culture was a big influence in the aspirations of some valedictorians.

Brian Janssen of Royal said he was transfixed by the O.J. Simpson trial and wants to be a forensic scientist, using technology and genetics to solve criminal cases. Janssen’s career goals go beyond the laboratory to the spotlight of the witness stand in high-profile trials.

“I’d love to be an expert on the stand and provide the pivotal point in a case,” he said. “I think that’s cool.”

Alina Gheta of Royal is also into crime. But she wants to fight it with girl power as an FBI agent. She said she is inspired by female FBI characters such as Scully on television’s “The X-Files,” and Clarice Starling, Jodi Foster’s role in the movie “The Silence of the Lambs,” who both courageously close cases.

“I look up to the image that a woman can pull it off,” Gheta said.

There are valedictorians, such as Karen Daugherty of Simi Valley High School, who have quite an agenda for their life: “to speak Gaelic and travel to Ireland, win the Nobel Prize in chemistry, learn how to fence, and become a five-time champion on ‘Jeopardy.’ ”

But there are others, such as Patrick Fisher of Thousand Oaks High School, who are not out to change the world just yet. First, they want to have some fun and perhaps take time to discover who they are.

“In my life, I would like to own a dog [and] be the person my dog thinks I am,” was his Zen-like outlook. “Dogs always think people are the greatest, and if you can live up to that, it’s a good goal to start with.”

Fisher looks forward to exploring things when he attends USC.

“I’m not exactly entering the adult world yet,” he said. “I’m going to college. It will be a chance to get away from the influence of my parents and become my own person.”

Seth Shapiro of Royal said he finds the whole notion of high school seniors mapping out their lives a bit premature.

“Everyone’s always asking what I’m going to do with my life, and I have no idea,” Shapiro said. “I’m only 17.”

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* HONOR ROLL: Ventura County’s top high school graduates discuss their ambitions. B2-3