New this year — our searchable QUEST website! Enter a student’s name, project discipline and click “Search this Site” to find more on what you are looking for! Over 340 ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade Quest Projects will be on display April 5 from 5:30-8:30 PM at our Bay Meadows campus! Our students invent their own learning journeys each year and carry them to completion — a practice that we hope they will continue for the rest of their lives in one form or another!

Locations and Performances

To find the location of a student, use this linked PDF. In general, 9th graders are on the 2nd floor, 10th on the 3rd, and 11th and 12th in the gym. These students are grouped by advisories. Students with special location needs will be in various other places. Performances will be held in the Café and will include opera, dance, instrumental music, and drama. See the posted schedule of performances in the Café, and on each floor by the stairs.

About Quest

Design Thinking in action, the Nueva Quest gives students the unique opportunity to pursue their own interests throughout their four years of high school. 

Working with their Advisors, I-Lab Team Members, and Nueva Quest teachers, students identify and craft their own personal in-depth inquiry in a self-selected area of evolving passion or in pursuit of a deep question. They may elect to pursue one field of study over four years or frame and complete a series of different Quests, each taking one or more years. Mentors, online resources, classes, and internships support them in their improved mastery in their areas of passion while teaching them how to recruit mentors and navigate in the real world. Quest is an extension of the eighth grade Recital Project established more than 25 years ago, and successfully completed by nearly 1,000 Nueva students. 

Quest is a further sophistication and application of Design Thinking as students:

• Identify their own needs and interests through reflection, observation, exploration, and inquiry.
• Research to learn subject matter, identify experts, and locate resources/mentors.
• Immerse themselves in deep thinking and empathy, developing deeper understanding of their interest area and of themselves.
• Invent a course of study and/or action, large enough to allow for personal growth and bounded enough to enable success.
• Brainstorm potential obstacles and issues; invent and analyze courses of action.
• Prototype in a cycle that allows for incorporation of feedback on an iterative basis.
• Persevere to accomplish their personal goals.  

As visitors to the Nueva School from around the world have heard about our students’ Quests and seen their ownership of their projects, they have gone back to implement Quest at their schools to prepare their students for their future lives. Quest builds many crucial skills over time, such as delving into the unknown, effectively managing projects, building a thriving mentorship relationship, and developing a habit of taking action and making one’s dreams come true.