As I take on the role of being Editor at Siliconeer, I am very excited to introduce a new section that would help bring forward empowering stories of young entrepreneurs, students, and working professionals. The goal of this section is to showcase the brilliant minds of tomorrow: their stories, their struggles, what their aspirations are.

Siliconeer wants to give South Asian students a voice in the community and we urge every student to embrace this initiative by writing to us.

My Story

Let me start by introducing myself as I do to most employers in my job documents. My name is Vansh Gupta and I am currently a third-year student at San Jose State University. I am pursuing a degree in Business Management Information Systems and currently, my cumulative GPA is 3.8 making me a Dean’s Scholar. I am also the Editor and Digital Specialist at Siliconeer with over 6 years of experience in Digital Publishing. My role includes the management of Siliconeer’s Digital Platform – content-wise and technology-wise.

This is the story being illustrated when I meet people outside of my circle. Seems impressive right?

Now, let me introduce myself with a different perspective. My name is Vansh Gupta and I am 19 years old who graduated from Mission San Jose High School in 2018. I wasn’t very academically savvy, and always valued a real-world experience more than my high school education. I was so un-motivated academically that in 9th grade I ended up going to summer school. My cumulative high school GPA towards the end of senior year was a 3.0 and I was rejected from every University I applied to except for San Jose State University and San Francisco State University. High school was a disastrous time for me, academically at least.

During my tenure in high school, I held the roles of Intern, Webmaster, Youth Editor, and finally, Digital Specialist at Siliconeer. I also developed a publishing and marketing platform called DigEthnic which won me first place at a state-level competition for DECA.

In both examples, my professional roles are identical, and I had a similar course load in both academic institutions. I always accepted that I didn’t excel in high school. Even now, I admit to it. However, I always wondered why my performance drastically improved at San Jose State University.

The answer is very simple – multiple elements play a significant part in an academic institution. Students’ motivation and perseverance are only part of the puzzle. The administration and educators are the ones who complete the whole picture. One’s high school experience is highly dependent on how their educators are. In our high school, we don’t get the liberty to choose our teachers so we can only hope that they’re able to facilitate learning within their curriculum. We can only hope that the administration would understand and accommodate each individual’s learning needs. I have had some very inspiring and very insightful teachers in college and high school. But I feel that many students, including me, have witnessed educators who haven’t successfully facilitated learning in their curriculums.

A toxic culture enabled by the administration and polarized by peers led to a stressful environment in our high school. Learning anything effectively in that school was challenging. You know, when teachers say, “no question is a stupid question,” well, it’s easier to say that phrase than to follow it.

A school should be a place to enable students who are highly capable but at the same time it also needs the capacity to help those who are struggling, to become highly capable. The high school I attended, although regarded as one of the best schools in the state, did little to accommodate those who were struggling, while managing to stress out even the valedictorians who were merely considered “good” at school.

This is just a short glimpse of what my story and my perspective look like as a South Asian student living in Silicon Valley. It shares what I consider as a struggle and what my experience was/is as a student.

Why are we doing this?

Like me, there are hundreds of thousands of students who have a similar story. They have climbed their mountains and struggled greatly before achieving some form of success. This section is created for those who want to share their story because there is always more than meets the eye. And there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel, we want more of you to be that light.