Just prior to graduation, Mission Bay High School valedictorian James Ward, and salutatorian Edgar Seecof, discussed their school experiences, what they’re doing this summer, their career aspirations, and outlooks on the future.
Ward led a team of colleagues this past year in co-founding Alattis, a student-led business creating a new videoconferencing platform built by students, for students, to resolve some of the problems with Zoom, and other video-conferencing platforms. “I’ll be working this summer to bring the platform to summer schools in San Diego,” he said.
An avid surfer and beachgoer, Seecof, who is going to UC San Diego this fall, will be busy this summer with an internship. “I’m going to be working at a little semiconductor place that works in automated tests, just helping with testing over there,” he said.
Ward started an entrepreneurship club at MBHS and was active in sports. “I was all-league rugby this year,” he said. “I won league championships for individuals and doubles for tennis.”
Not a club or sports person, and more of a free spirit, Seecof said: “I just kind of march to the beat of my own drum, do what I do after school. That’s how I am.”
Of how they’ll remember MBHS, both Ward and Seecof will remember it well.
“The biggest thing I’ll remember is the sports because I was really into sports,” said Ward adding, “And then I would say the people I met. One thing I really enjoyed was the homecoming dances and the pep rallies during my freshman and sophomore years. And then, also, the IB program at Mission Bay.”
“There are lots of nice teachers here willing to get to know you, both after school and during class,” said Seecof. “Everyone’s very accepting here.”
Ward will be attending Warton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. “I want to pursue a double major in economics with a focus in health administration and policy and computational and mathematical biology,” he said. “My end goal is to be a CEO of a hospital. My grandma passed away because she wasn’t able to get the care she needed. I want to be in charge of a hospital so I can prevent that from happening to other people.”
“I enrolled for computer engineering at UC San Diego, so we’ll see where I end up, maybe in software or hardware,” said Seecof. “I went through the engineering program at MBHS and took IB design technology, the building side of engineering, which gives you more of a design orientation, not just grinding out mathematics for thermodynamics and linear algebra.”
The two young scholars had decidedly different attitudes toward current events in these times of inflation, the housing crisis, the war in Ukraine, and mass shootings happening more frequently nationwide.
“As young people, it’s our responsibility to educate ourselves on what’s happening,” said Ward. “We have access to so much information that other generations didn’t have. We can use that to benefit the world in a lot of ways. For example, with social media, people can explore different perspectives of others that they wouldn’t have been able to see in their own communities.”
“It’s good to be optimistic but not overly optimistic, thinking about stuff in the future, making all the stuff we’ve done right now better, is not the way to look at it,” said Seecof. “What you want to fight, you need to fight right now, because counting on future generations, and future actions, to happen is not a good way to go about it.”
Looking ahead, Ward said, “I’m definitely optimistic in people as a whole, as well as myself, to be proactive and make change where change is needed. With the power of social media and the internet, we can work together to begin solving the problems of the world. And the first step to solving any issue is awareness.”
“It is stressful to watch inflation bumping up really fast, the really crappy housing market, and just the generic economic situation comparing it to past generations,” said Seecof. “That’s distressing. But you’ve got to just roll with it. You can’t do much by yourself. You need a lot of people to do everything.”
