Leap, Fly, and Learn

[Ken Leung]

Leap, Fly, and Learn
By Ken K.H. Leung

I have been staying up all night thinking about what I want to do lately. I don't mean what I want for lunch tomorrow. I mean the bigger, more important things. I don't spend enough time thinking about that anymore. I began dating for about four months now, I have plenty of books to keep me busy ("Contact" and "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" come immediately to mind). I started paying more attention in eating healthily, and more time playing basketball and racquetball. Not to mention homework, midterms, finals; homework, midterms, finals; homework, midterms, finals; homework, midterms, finals; homework, midterms, finals; homework, midterms, and finals.

It made me really miss being a high school student again, though I cannot logically justify that thought. I still remember how exhausting it was to talk ceaselessly about GPA, college ranking, SATs, and related topics. You should know of course, I bet some of you are already looking up colleges, writing application essays, preparing for interviews, and attending test prep classes.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think GPA and test scores are bad. The reality is they are how society evaluate your performance in school. But when that's the only thing you grow up with, it becomes very difficult for you to see the truly important things.

What are they?


How about the 1,444,920 Americans who are predicted to have Cancer in the year 2007, 178,480 of which are female breast cancer, 107,430 of which will be Leukemia and Lymphoma, and 213,380 of which will be lung and bronchus cancer? Or, the 2.4-3.3 million lives from around the world who died from HIV/AIDS, of which more than 570,000 were children?

What about the 842 million people worldwide who are undernourished, or the 1 billion adults who are non-literate (about 18% of world population, two-thirds of which are women)?

In this year have you spent more than 5 minutes thinking about…

The 12,000 households who still don't have their own home after Hurricane Katrina?
The fact that worker-to-social-security-beneficiary ratio has fallen from 16.5 to 1 in 1950 to 3.3 to 1 today, and 2 to 1 within 40 years?
The 3000+ American death and the 25,000 wounded during the war in Iraq, whether you support the war or not? (I do not wish to have a debate about the war, only to point out this is an important issue for this country)
The climate change in recent years, whether you believe human beings is a major contributor to this problem or not?
The controversy of String theory, and the debate between evolution and intelligent design?
The continual decline in the number of students training to be scientists and engineers, or the report that shows US students are getting better grades in Math, but are performing worse in international tests?


When you are faced with these problems, it won't matter what your GPA is or SAT scores are, only what you learned, how well you can work with other people, and how passionate you are.

So, in the next few years, you will be fighting with everything you've ever been taught, trying to decide what's more important. There are those struggling through school everyday never knowing why they are having such a hard time, and those who spend years thinking about this and decide to stay with the academic world anyway. That's ok, at least they asked themselves the question, at least they made their own decision, at least they had the courage to try to change their mind.

Because to do anything otherwise is unimaginable to me. To never speak, act, or reach out because of rejection and disappointment… I wouldn't know how to live like that.

There is no doubt it will be hard. You are going to be wrong, people will criticize, there will be good times as well as bad times. But after you fumble and mess up, you will stand back up, and you will recover. College is the place to make mistakes so you can learn from them.


Just let your curiosity lead you, let it lead you to the books, the magazines, the radios, the documentaries, to new places and new things, to new voices and new ideas, because there is no better time to Leap off your feet than Now.

Now is the time to make a fool of yourself. Now is the time to come up with preposterous ideas. Now is the time to stay up all night, eat a lot of pizza, drink a lot of soda. Now is the time to scramble, panic, and get yelled at.

Now is the time to pick up a word, a phrase, an idea, a theory, a design, an essay, a formula, a speech, a hypothesis, an issue, a question, a belief, an intuition, an objective, and Fly.

And now is the time to walk up to someone and tell them what you think, and why you think, because you have the responsibility to correct yourself when you are wrong, and the responsibility to change someone's mind if you believe in something strongly.

Now is the time to think about what you want to do in the next 10 years, so you can spend the next 10 years thinking about what you want to do in the next 20, because when the time comes for us to be leaders, we will be ready.

Many of the 1300 FRC teams' seniors will graduate this summer. Some will move on with nothing more than pocket changes, and some with the full blessing of family, friends, scholarships, and experiences.

Whether you are Caucasian, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Middle-eastern, or European;
Whether you are rich or poor, smart or slow, over-achieving or under-performing;
Whether you are majoring in engineering, science, literature, history, mathematics, or business,
Whether you came from the East coast, Mid-West, South, West Coast, Pacific Northwest, or Central America;
Whether you are interested in classics, sports, games, music, nature, or politics;
Or whether you are red or blue, religious or atheist, conservative or liberal;
The journey will be equally difficult.

Keep your eyes focused, ears sharp, mind opened, and hearts firmed, for there is no better guide to help you Learn than Curiosity.


If you are losing sleep and stressing out and equally excited about going to college, welcome to the club, we have some jackets made.