Each month, the principals of Gilroy and Christopher high schools choose a total of four students (two from GHS and two from CHS) to spotlight. CHS senior Justin Laveroni, 17, is this week’s Student of the Week.
What inspires you? My volleyball idol, Brad Lawson, inspires me. He was an All-American NCAA Men’s Volleyball player at Stanford last year and is currently playing professionally in Europe. On top of being an amazing athlete, he majored in Computer Science which is what I will be majoring in as well.
What is your favorite subject in school, and why? I like math the best because, as nerdy as it sounds, I enjoy spending time just sitting down and completing a long problem. Both AP Calculus and AP Statistics generally have one single correct answer in their problems whereas other subjects are open to interpretation and debate.
If you had the power to change one thing in the world, what would it be? I would expand funding for education at the college level so that engineering programs would be capable of handling more students because, as a nation, we are looking for engineers but our colleges have such limited programs for many well qualified and great students wanting to make a difference in the many fields encompassed by the engineering discipline.
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? If I could go anywhere, I would choose to go to London. England. Something about that city really interests me and, although I have been there briefly, I would like to be able to spend more time exploring what the city has to offer.
Name one big challenge in your life right now: One big challenge I face is balancing my schedule with homework, volleyball, AP exams and everything else going on related to college.
What is your dream job? Everyone thinks that I would want to be a dentist like my dad but I do not want to do anything related to the medical field. My dream job is working at a company like Apple as a software engineer.
If you were stuck on a deserted island, what three things could you not live without? I would bring a volleyball, an endless supply of books to read and an iPod running off of solar power so I could constantly recharge it.
Favorite book: My favorite books are part of the “Cherub” series by Robert Muchamore, a British author. These books are no longer sold in the United States, so I have to order them online from England and wait forever for them to arrive before I can read them, but the process is definitely worth it.
What do you want to do after high school? I will be attending the University of Southern California (USC) in the fall and will be majoring in Computer Science/Computer Engineering. Right now, I am hoping to minor in computer forensics and at minimum, earn my Master’s degree before starting work at a local company in the Bay Area. This has been my goal since 8th grade and I have been working hard to make it happen.
