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The plugged-in generation. The globalized generation. The competitive generation.

Local high school seniors graduating this week used these phrases and more to describe themselves as they discussed their hopes and dreams for the future and challenges they face.

Several dozen graduating seniors from 10 public and private high schools — in interviews with the Weekly — sought ways to define their generation and speculated on how their lives will differ from those of their parents.

Technology is the dominant theme. The graduates mused on how they are the first generation to grow up entirely with both technology's unprecedented opportunities for solving problems and its downsides.

"We are the first generation that is in constant communication with one another through Facebook, MySpace, AIM, cell phones and more," said Atherton resident Constance "Consi" Hiller, who is heading from Woodside Priory School in Woodside to the Engineering School of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

"The speed in which we can communicate and the availability of constant interruption is unique to our generation, and we need to learn to cope with all of these distractions," Hiller said in an e-mail — between interruptions.

"I have to set my devices aside in order to have a meaningful train of thought. While just answering these questions, I have been contacted in three different ways at least five times."

The biggest challenge is "how to filter our means of communication and stream it into something positive," Hiller said.

An example of "positive" was added by Menlo School graduate Amy Wipfler of Menlo Park: "People our age have so much information at their fingertips. Our generation has the opportunity to apply this vast amount of information to the ever-mounting number of social, political and economic problems the world faces."



In East Palo Alto, many graduates of both public and private high schools look to college next year with a special kind of excitement: They'll be the first in their families to have the opportunity to attend.

"We will be known for closing the achievement gap," senior Shayla Bunch of Eastside Preparatory School said, when asked what defines her generation.

Bunch said her mother, who did not finish high school, began in the fast-food industry and now works two jobs — checking groceries at Safeway and filing at Stanford University — to give her two daughters a better chance. Bunch will attend Emory University in Atlanta this fall and her older sister, Samantha, just finished her freshman year at Temple University in Philadelphia.

"My mother is working to give my sister and me more options in life," Bunch said. "She didn't have very many. If she had the choice, she probably would go back to school."

Bunch's story was echoed by many others.

At the public charter school East Palo Alto Academy High School, senior Kiara Gaytan, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, plans to go to Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont.

"My parents and many of my friends' parents came from Mexico to pursue the American dream. We know what they went through and we don't want to go through the same thing," Gaytan said, adding that her mother works for a dry cleaner and her father is unemployed.

Those students — from Eastside Prep, the private Mid-Peninsula High School in Menlo Park and East Palo Alto Academy High School, as well as some schools on the west side of Highway 101 — credited their teachers for believing in their potential and sticking with them through thick and thin.

"My teachers were more than just my path to knowledge — they were my best friends," said Deepak Charan, who is heading from East Palo Alto Academy High School to study business and computer science at California State University, East Bay, in Hayward.



A global perspective — from Latin America to Asia to the Middle East and Africa — also defines the Class of 2009.

Menlo's Wipfler will attend this summer's G8 Summit in Italy on a Rotary Club scholarship before heading to Tufts University in Massachusetts this fall.

Gunn High School graduates Danielle Aspitz and Emmiliese von Clemm each will take a "gap year" — Aspitz in Israel and von Clemm in India, Indonesia and South America — before heading, respectively, to Washington University in St. Louis and Princeton University in New Jersey in the fall of 2010.

With an array of college options, Palo Alto High School graduate Becky Byler said she finally settled on Georgia Tech in Atlanta because it offers an "international plan" option with any major and will put a global spin on her planned study of biomedical engineering and pre-med, including substantial time abroad.

Byler, who has spent summers in Panama and Nicaragua with the international nonprofit organization Amigos, said she hopes to minor in Spanish and International Relations and eventually serve in the Peace Corps.

"I'm studying biomedical engineering and pre-med so I can bring that knowledge over to the Americas and find ways to bring basic health care to these communities for them to use on their own," she said.

Observing the shifting balances of power in the world, several graduates said they are planning their futures accordingly.

"It seems as though the United States is becoming less of a global power and foreign governments are having increasing influence on the global community," said Erik Klingbeil, who served as student body president at Paly. "With that happening, I think it's important that people have at least a background in international relations.

Klingbeil, whose Eagle Scout project was raising $45,000 and assembling 1,500 medical kits for African and South American hospitals through the nonprofit organization World Vision, has earned a full scholarship to Rhodes College in Memphis.

There he hopes to study international relations, which he views as a good foundation for a career in law or finance.

For Beijing-born Gunn graduate Tenny Zhang, the increasing international influence of China has been a significant factor in her family's life.

"For my generation, we've grown up in the United States so I feel more American than Chinese while my parents definitely feel more Chinese than American," said Zhang, whose family moved to the United States when she was 4.

"When they were growing up, China was kind of behind in terms of its economy and status in the world. Now China is gaining a lot of respect, getting more capitalistic and adapting to this new way of operating.

"For my generation, the two countries are more the same because China has become more globalized. For my parents, to go from when they were in China and to see it now, it's a huge change for them and they definitely feel very proud about how far China has come."

Late in May Zhang was still trying to choose between Brown University in Rhode Island or the University of California at Berkeley. She expects to pursue a career in medicine, but may choose a major in the social sciences despite the preferences of her parents, both physicists.

"They're really open to whatever I want to do, but I definitely feel they prefer I went into biology over history," Zhang said. "They tend to think science is basically the best thing ever."

Jessica Lee, a graduate of Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, is considering a psychology major at Boston University.

"I believe my generation will be known for and will be set apart by competition," Lee said. "From what I have experienced, this year is one of the most competitive years to get into college — and in the future, when we are looking for jobs, it will again be filled with competition."

Paly grad Paul Brown is heading to Cuesta Community College in San Luis Obispo with an eye on a career that, despite global competition, cannot be outsourced — construction management.

After two years at Cuesta, Brown said he hopes to transfer into the construction-management program at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.



Like generations before them, the Class of '09 has no easy answers to the timeless dilemma of career/family balance.

"From what I've heard, there's no good time to have a kid if you want to be a doctor," said Paly's Grace LaPier, who is heading for pre-med studies at Williams College in Massachusetts.

"I think if I do end up wanting children I will adopt them, and hopefully my partner will be willing to help a lot in taking care of them. Otherwise, I might be in trouble."

Gaytan of East Palo Alto Academy said she intends to establish a career in health care and become an anesthesiologist before having children. She wants to avoid the situation of many parents she knows, who work by the hour and rarely if ever visit their children's schools because they cannot afford to take time off.

"I'll be able to be more involved in my children's education and help them out," Gaytan said.

East Palo Alto resident Manuel "Manny" Salvador Andrade of Mid-Peninsula High already knows he wants to have five children.

"I come from a big family — I'm the oldest of six — and I love caring for my little brothers, helping them out, being someone who's older and wiser," said the Mexican-born Andrade, who was sworn in as a United States citizen on April 15.

Andrade spends weekends performing at baptisms, weddings and quinceaneras with his band "El Mysterio de Michoacan" (he plays accordion). He said he plans to study nursing at California State University, East Bay and hopes eventually to become a doctor.

Several graduates expressed an interest in staying home full-time with children, but not all.

Gunn's Amarelle-Natalie Hanyecz spoke for many when she said: "I could never be a stay-at-home mom because I wouldn't be able to pursue my dreams and passions. On the other hand, I couldn't be happy without a family of my own and I love kids. Ideally, I'll be able to have the type of job which will allow me to be flexible with my time so I can always be there for my family."

Hanyecz, who plans to study communications at the University of Southern California and eventually earn an MBA, hopes to open her own business.




With only a few exceptions, graduates expressed admiration for their parents, but differed on whether they expect their lives to be like those of their moms and dads.

Servando Barriga, who is heading from Woodside Priory to the University of California at Santa Barbara, said he hopes his life will be different.

"My parents are immigrants to the United States and have had to fight and work hard for everything that they have received in life, which is not much, especially in terms of monetary status," he said. They came to the U.S. for him and his two sisters, he said.

"My older sister recently graduated from UCLA, I am attending UCSB and my little sister is in sixth grade, so their mission is working thus far."

Mid-Peninsula's Andrade echoed Barriga's sentiments: "My parents don't speak a lot of English, so my life's going to be different in that way," he said of his father, who owns a tire shop, and his mother, a homemaker.

"My mom, she knows how to cook — maybe I could open her up a restaurant in the future."

"My life will be really different because neither of my parents went to a four-year college, so they just have jobs, not necessarily careers," Erica Wilson of East Palo Alto, a Mid-Peninsula graduate who plans to train as a math teacher at Dominican University, said.

"I know for a fact I will have a career, not a job — something I like and have a passion for, not something I dread doing every day."

Pinewood graduate Ethan Lalakea Alter, heading to the University of Pennsylvania, said his parents, a lawyer and a doctor, "took the path of getting as much education as they could and then getting a job with that education.

"My path is looking like it's going to be fairly similar unless I have some visionary roommate at Penn who encourages me to step off the beaten path and start a company, and that's possible."

Paly's Byler said of her parents, both scientists and engineers: "I hope my life is similar to theirs. I think they live a good life. They're both very happy and that's what I'm striving for, too — having all the people I love around me."

Atherton resident Christian "Chipper" Montalvo, heading east to Boston College after Woodside Priory, said: "I can only wish that I will live as gifted of a life as my parents."

One East Palo Alto graduate, who said his mother kicked him out of the house the day after his 16th birthday, takes daily inspiration from a letter she wrote to him.

"It says I'm no good and will never amount to anything, and I carry it everywhere I go as inspiration to prove her wrong," said the student, who will be the first in his family to attend college, a private university where he will study engineering.

"I'm not looking to gloat — just holding onto that letter to make sure I keep pushing as hard as I can push.

"At first the letter hurt me, but I know I can't dwell on certain things that have happened. I realized it's better to take it, make it kind of positive and go from there."

Teachers, friends and his school community have been his family since he is estranged from his biological parents and siblings, the student said.



The class of '09 is ready for adventure, but the lure of settling eventually in the Bay Area is powerful.

"It would be great living elsewhere, but even stronger is my desire to come back and help other people like myself," said Yale-bound Eastside Prep graduate Francisco Tamayo of East Palo Alto. "I would like to check out the East Coast, but this is my roots, this is where I'm from."

Gaytan said she wants to establish her career and then move back to East Palo Alto so that "people will know it's not just druggers with no education who live here."

Michal David, who is heading to Emory University from Palo Alto's Kehillah Jewish High School, said she wants to travel and start a school in a Third World country, but eventually may come back.

The Palo Alto area "is unique in that it provides both the opportunity for engagement in the high-tech business world, but it also provides an escape from all the hustle and bustle of daily life with its beautiful landscape. It is unique in that it is very 'intellectually affluent' and I think that this characteristic allows for real innovation and contemplation of critical issues of the world."

David added that she also appreciates the environmentalism and political activism of the Bay Area.

"Earning enough money to afford living in Palo Alto is not one of my current top priorities," Gunn's von Clemm said. "I have no idea where I will end up living. ... I will feel very lucky if I can provide my kids with the same standard of living that my parents have provided me with, but that's a lot of pressure!"

"I love Palo Alto but I'm not sure if I could live here," Paly's Grace LaPier added. "I'm going to the East Coast for college because I feel like once Palo Alto sucks you in, you end up living here for 20 years and getting a bit of a fixed perspective on life, which I don't want."




With a few exceptions, the graduates said the election of Barack Obama as president increases their optimism about the future.

"For me, the election of President Obama re-established a personal sense of pride in our nation," said Tali Azenkot, a graduate of Kehillah who is going on to Barnard College in New York.

"I don't want to seem too idealistic, but I do think America will be a better place for my generation right now than at least a couple of generations before us," Gunn's Tenny Zhang said. "I worked on the Barack Obama campaign and really got to witness so many people finally getting involved in their community and in politics.

"I think we have a great ability to just believe we can actually do something different. Our generation — I think we believe we have the capacity to actually change something. We have more confidence in ourselves."