Coming straight out of my second college midterm season and nearing the end of my second quarter of higher education, I often find myself thinking back on my past four years at the one and only Dougherty Valley High School. Located in suburban San Ramon, California, DVHS is notorious for being one of the most competitive, toxic academic environments in the tri-valley. The school is filled to the brim with second-generation Asian Americans such as myself, students who had their parents’ high expectations embedded into their DNA at conception. The common perception of the Dougherty condition is that students hate it for the academic competition and the fierce obsession with grades. Teachers acknowledge it, students acknowledge it, and parents acknowledge it. Every year, hordes of students decorate their graduation caps with the colors of Ivy Leagues, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and pretty much every single top school that you can think of. I could try to further explain the perceived essence of my high school, but I’ll just share this lovely Urban Dictionary definition of Dougherty to perfectly encapsulate it instead:
“A school obsessed with grades, AP classes, honor classes, and majority Asian… If you haven’t skipped a grade of math at DVHS, you sure as hell better be taking the honors or AP level of your “own level” math class to redeem yourself… Majority of school hates being at Dougherty, and wishes for a less competitive school. Added bonus, your social status at school is determined by a simple decision: Grades vs Social Life, one puts you in the academic arena with no social life, the other puts you in the social hierarchy practiced by other schools where you will never be accepted as an equal in any AP or honor class by the other academic oriented kids.”
I’m sure a lot of you know what kind of school I’m talking about by now. This definition pretty much sums up what a lot of people will say about Dougherty and many of the other competitive high schools out there. Yet, despite all the hate and supposed toxicity, when I think about my time at the hell-hole that was Dougherty Valley High School, all I really feel is admiration.
On the massive apple tree that was Dougherty Valley, we were the apples. People say that our environment was infused with toxic pesticides and we were all in competition with each other to be the biggest, juiciest, and brightest red apple. For a long time, I resented my school for being too crazy, too competitive, and too toxic. But when I reminisce on my time there now, I know that I am infinitely better for having been a part of such madness. The intellectuals that surrounded me pushed me to want more and taught me what it means to be passionate and take life into your own hands.
To my fellow leadership kids: others may have called you entitled, but you showed me how to work hard to bring a vision to life and how to be passionate. You showed me motivation and creativity, how to lead by compassion, and how to enjoy high school while we had it.
To the student-athletes, the choir geeks, and every single one of you insanely intelligent people studying at Ivy Leagues, Stanford, and every other prestigious university that I can name, you have taught me to improve myself in every aspect. You have taught me to run harder when I think my legs cannot move any faster, how to leave behind trivial academic worries, to make connections through music, and how to never accept “average” from myself if I know that I can do better.
To every single one of my peers that I’ve interacted with, from the quiet and tiny sophomore in my AP Stats class to my friend with the magical vocal chords, from my lifelong pal with the donuts, to the kid who made varsity baseball as a freshman, you all have shaped me into the person I am today. I observed and learned from the examples that you set for me with every interaction we had. In my time at Dougherty, I let every peer I met (and even those I didn’t meet) influence me and inspire me, and I don’t regret taking that “toxic” plunge one bit.
So I guess what I’m saying is that we shouldn’t resent competition and ambition for tearing us down. Being at a competitive school can be toxic, but there are so many wonderfully intelligent people that we can learn from. Let those who are better than you inspire you to be better and to do more. Let another’s drive for success fuel your own. The pesticide isn’t toxic unless you let it be toxic—rather, it’s meant to kill the weeds and parasites that are trying to hold you back so that you can grow to be among the juiciest and brightest apples on the tree.