What Happened after High School
a few weeks ago i was sitting in front
of my desk
thinking about what this speech should
be about
i was trying to find a connection
between you guys and i
and i thought oh we do have something in
common we’re all student
at ica ones so today i wanted to share
the story about my life
after graduating from ica let me start
with the introduction of myself
my name is grace huang and i’m ica
alumni from class of 2014.
i came to icic when i was in the 9th
grade i now have graduated from
university with a bachelor degree in
business management
and another one in restaurant management
when i first came to ica i was a really
shy girl who could barely speak english
and then i graduated as an 18 year old
who is very confident
and excited to explore the world this is
what icf meant to me
a place that showed you everything is
possible
i was a good student a straight a
student
i participated in different school
events activities and sport
making sure i was enough to apply to
multiple universities in my senior year
like most of you guys will be doing this
semester we try to show the best side of
ourselves
on our applications in order to get into
our dream schools
and which i did i was accepted into one
of the top universities in the world
university of british columbia in
vancouver canada
a science major as i wanted to become a
marine biologist one day
and on top of that i also got full
scholarship
by the national science council of
taiwan
which will cover my four-year tuitions
and also my living expenses
it just seems like there’s a bright
future right in front of me
and then it went downhill as the
semester started
i was very excited and very motivated
however
i soon realized i could barely keep up
with the curriculum
i was really afraid to ask questions
because i didn’t want to look stupid in
front of all my classmates
i always told myself just go home and
google the answer online
it’ll be easier and save yourself from
embarrassment
i started to lose confidence was i good
enough to be in this school
was marine biology the right thing for
me
all this negative thoughts have brought
me to a dark place
i lost motivation to get out in the
morning and go to classes
i lost motivation to socialize with
people
i lost interest in the subject i was
studying
was marine biology the right thing for
me or
was university the right thing for me
at the end of the semester even though i
didn’t fail any classes
my grades were at the age of failing
imagine this
you’re a straight a student in high
school and then you become a straight b
student in freshman year that was a big
disappointment for myself so i didn’t
know what to do
i think what got me into that situation
is
because of my pride i was too proud of
myself
in order to admit to the fact that i’m
not good enough for this school
and i think the correct word is maybe
arrogant
so at the end of the year i found out
that my grades were not high enough for
me to even change my major
i decided it is time to find help it
took me the whole year
to admit to the fact that i was
overwhelmed and terrified by the whole
situation
so i decided i need to go see my
university counselor
after explaining the whole situation she
told me
it is actually pretty normal for
freshmen to feel this way
and what she suggested me to do is to
take a gap year
for those who don’t know a gap year is
when students
take a year off or semester off in order
to learn through experience
there’s many things you can learn during
a gap year you can learn a new language
you can work you can travel it is
usually taken
after high school and before university
started however
some university kids take it during
university in order to rethink about the
path they wanted to pursue
so i decided i wanted to take a gap year
but
what should i do one thing i enjoyed the
most during my freshman year was cooking
for my roommate
it was just some easy home cooking or
baking cookies during my spare time
it’s a way to escape from the
stress from school and what my roommate
told me was that
why don’t you just take a cooking class
i think
now i think about that maybe it’s for
her own benefit
but at that time i thought it was a
great idea
it’s a nice skill to have and i thought
it would be coming handy when i’m
looking for a husband
so i decided i want to start my culinary
journey
but before i get into all that there’s
one more thing
this decision was not free it had a cost
i had to decide if i wanted to give on
my full scholarship
since i’m no longer a student at the
university i had a counselor who was
assigned to me
and her job was to keep me on track
during my academic year
in order to get my scholarship i told
her about the decision about going to
culinary school
hoping she will be understanding and
being supportive
however her response was shocking and
unexpected to me
what she said was you are going to
choose a culinary school
over one of the top university in the
world are you
out of your mind throwing yourself your
future away like this
i could not face your parents and i’m
very very ashamed of you
like in my mind i was thinking was that
the social expectation in asian society
that for individuals or organizations
does society as a whole about what
people should do
in asian society parents always have
high expectations for their kids
to become a doctor or lawyer in the
future
jobs like working in the kitchen
sometimes is
assumed as a low-end job and are for
those who never have a proper education
i think this is her thinking but it is
the 21st century
people should be free to do whatever
they like to do
because it really will limit people’s
creativity
so to me the scholarship represents more
than just money
it also represented my pride and at that
time i thought
it is time to put my pride aside and
then start it from zero again
so i decided to give out my scholarship
and have a whole new journey at this
culinary school
and to this day i still believe that
going to this culinary school
is one of the best decisions i have ever
made my school was
right next to the biggest farmer’s
market in vancouver so
the ingredients we used are the freshest
week we found
even though the hours were long i was
loving every second of it
our instructors teach us not only knife
skills
but also the correct way and respectful
way to treat each ingredient
we have a restaurant inside the school
for real customers
so students come up with the menu and
work under the guidance
of our instructors during the weekend
i will volunteer to work at hotels and
restaurants
in order to gain more experience
i finally feel like i fit into a group a
group
of people who share the same passion as
me
at the end of the semester i wanted to
invite my father to come to my
graduation
because i want to show him what i have
achieved during this year
at first he thought this coronary thing
was just a face
and i would go back to university
afterward
however when the headmaster called my
name and asked me up to the stage
he also announced that i have graduated
with the highest score
in my year i could hear my father
cheering from the audience see
he was so proud and i knew at that
moment he was ready to give me his full
support
so within three months after i graduated
i
moved to paris and enrolled into a whole
new university
during these three years i achieved so
much
i was working at one of the top hotels
in paris as an intern i also did an
exchange program in bangkok thailand
to learn about thai cuisine and i did an
internship back in taiwan
working closely with farmers to learn
more about local ingredients
during these three years i used all the
opportunities i could found
and then i graduated with a dual degree
and now i have just quit my job not long
ago
because i wanted to start my own
business which is all about fresh
ingredients
and handmade product i wanted to share a
quote with you
as ernest hemingway famously wrote in
his book
if you are lucky enough to have lived in
paris as a young man
then whenever you go for the rest of
your life it stays with you
for paris is a movable feast and
i was truly the lucky one if i haven’t
made
all those hard decisions i will never
have a chance to move to paris and have
all this amazing experience
like he says paris really stays with you
which is why i want to bring this
parisian lifestyle
back into my business i want to share
not only
delicious product but also a fun and
relaxing way of
living after graduating from high school
life might be more difficult than what
you think it will be
you think 12 years of education is
enough for you to figure out what you
wanted to do
or who you wanted to become but
sometimes
you just need a little bit more time and
space to figure that out
high school sometimes feel like it’s
about fulfilling others expectations
either from your parents or from
teachers
but university is the time when you
really need to take responsibility for
yourself
and make decisions for yourself
because of my decision to go to culinary
school instead of a university
people has called me all sorts of names
they went even
crazier when i told them going to start
it from zero again
in paris they’ll always have something
to say
but the most important thing is how to
turn this negative energy
into something positive to me the
turbulence in life
is about people’s criticism against my
own decision
it took me extra two years to figure out
the way
the path i wanted to pursue but i think
that’s okay
to me it’s worth it because now i know
my worth
and i’m honest to myself about my
strengths and my weaknesses
now the most important thing is i only
live out to my own expectation now
and to me that is the indication of a
mature and very successful person
thank you guys