Student Spotlight: Bryan Fernandez

“Good afternoon Pioneer High School: students, teachers, and staff.”

From listening to the morning announcements, this voice may sound familiar to you; it’s the voice of one of Pioneer’s seniors, Bryan Fernandez. To learn more about the person behind the voice, we sat down one afternoon for an interview. Enthusiastic and outspoken, his well-composed responses gave us a glimpse into his everyday activities, opinions, and aspirations.

At the core of who Bryan Fernandez is, one will find dedication: his dedication to building a strong sense of community in whatever he is involved in and his dedication to making the most out of the here and now.

With Bryan, it seems like he always has a million different things on his plate. So what is it that keeps him busy? He explains there are four main things, the first being his role as the senior class president. He spends a lot of time planning out activities and organizing various school events: “Most of the work is done during homecoming week: overseeing the float and our window, which is definitely one of the more stressful parts of the job. We also do things throughout the year, like I was able to organize the game night for the class of ‘22. I do some logistical housekeeping things like organizing fundraisers, talking to businesses, overseeing our class meetings, and planning the agenda. A lot of this is up to the class president, but we definitely get a lot of support from the class and class advisors when it comes to all that.” He looks forward to the things ahead: “Some of the bigger things that will be coming up are planning our prom, the “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” event where we celebrate where our seniors will be [heading].”

ASB and MEChA club are two other involvements of his within school.

“ASB takes up quite a bit of time with social media and helping other people there, ” he explains. As president of MEChA -- “an oncampus club that promotes the chicana/latino culture”-- he works to promote it on campus, and hold events and spirit weeks.

Besides those involvements, Bryan is a part of a non-profit by the name of the Chicano Latino Youth Leadership Project.

What is most endearing about Bryan’s story is his inspiration for working as hard as he does: “My mom. I've seen how much she’s gone through and everything she’s done for me and my sisters has been the driving force behind everything that I do. In the back of my head it's always, let's make her proud, she's done so much for you. She's my built-in-best friend, it's always been me and her and she's always there when I need to tell her things and to congratulate and celebrate me. So, yeah… she’s my biggest source of inspiration.”

Outside of school, Bryan enjoys indulging in different genres of literature. From autobiographies to young adult fiction, Fernandez gave an insight to two of his most favorite novels of by far: “I’ve been in this reading groove and the book that got me into reading was It Ends With Us…Before that, I read Becoming by Michelle Obama [,a memoir; it] was very interesting to… learn the insight of someone who held such a big title in our country.”

Looking to the future, Fernandez prefers to keep his options open instead of narrowing it down to one career path. As of now, his interest is primarily in Political Science: “Once I get my undergraduate degree, my biggest plan would be to go into law school and study immigration law… I’d like to keep my options open to other paths. If not the immigration attorney route.” As we grew more curious into the discussion, we asked him what other interests he sees himself pursuing if it weren’t working at a law firm. He tells us that he is “also interested in political analytics and journalism.”

Bryan’s future is approaching faster than anticipated. He has been accepted by Sacramento State and San Diego State as a Political Science Major. Which led us to asking, what college does Bryan see himself attending? Fernandez dreams of living in Southern California and hopes to be accepted by the University of Southern California, which he claims to be his “biggest thing” at the moment.

As his senior year is coming to an end, we asked Bryan what is one thing he wishes for underclassmen to know as they navigate through their last few years of high school: “Make the most out of your high school experience, as cheesy as it may sound. I got told this my freshman year by one of the seniors. She said, ‘high school is what you make of it. It's what you do that ends up shaping how you experience it.’ and that’s the message that I want to pass down [to other students].” Bryan emphasizes that “when you look back, you’re not going to remember those times in class where you’re learning about derivatives (like we are right now),” he adds with a laugh, “you’re going to remember those fun experiences with your friends.”

For now, Bryan is savoring his last year of high school: “Not something tangible, more so creating memories is so important to me right now, especially because I'll be parting ways with a lot of my friends… I’m really excited to see what's next but I'd like to keep those moments for a little while longer.”