You know my name, not my story!

Being a fellow senior I have had the great pleasure of knowing Yoel Hernandez Sanchez for almost 7 consecutive school years. Over this vast time period, he has been greatly honored with many titles ranging from FWISD Cord Command Sergeant Major to YMLA varsity soccer captain.

With so many titles one begins to wonder what drives someone to be so invested in their community in his words “I never did those things for the titles per se, but I did those things because they were what I loved doing, the titles were just something that came with them overtime”

With Yoel being a part of so many extracurriculars I began to wonder if putting so much time in school left room for regrets, with maybe not going out as much, or putting more time in school than out of it, which he replied with “I think that the idea that I didn’t do many things outside of school and books is very common, but the truth of the matter is there was a balance I found with the things I did and so finding that balance helped me stay motivated without feeling burnt out, while also not feeling regretful”.

Moving past the school I wondered what made Yoel into the hard-working and dedicated person he is, his response “all you have to do is get in the right mindset and set your goals…you no longer have to be the absolute best just as long as you work hard, because not everyone is going to know everything” also “as long as you can understand everything you need to work on and focus on those aspects…it’s really all about working on the things you do”

All of the accomplishment and praise he’s gotten over his high school career birthed the question; how would your middle school view you now? “I think my middle school me would be in a sense very proud of me now….I’m still doing things I enjoyed back then and through all of that I still kept my values and faith with religion while still managing to understand other people and their backgrounds”

Some final words of advice he was very adamant about people knowing was “the first thing would be to find something you want to actually sit down and get involved with…doing a lot of things you don’t enjoy simply to put on your resume is bad because you won’t continue doing it for long. As well as finding a balance between school and the things you want to do. But overall not everything that works for me works for everyone else so it’s better to find your balance and strengthen it, rather than comparing yourself to the person above you because you never know the things they might be going through on the inside”

I closed by asking him how he truly felt about being so involved with school and maintaining a social life with such a busy schedule and he exclaimed how “I feel very excited for what the future holds, there is always that bit of uncertainty but at the end, nobody knows that but god, but I feel great about what my future holds and I feel proud of everything I did, pushing myself to the maximum I could, and I think everything is turning out exactly as I hoped I would”

I am beyond honored with having the pleasure of spending so much time with him and seeing how he has truly changed over the years, and I cannot wait to see how successful the valedictorian turns out after high school!