Cristal Hernandez '19 Recruiting Profile

Growing up was came as close to being relentless. I grew up in a place where I had no role model; my mother was a single parent who never went to college and we lived with our grandmother in the San Fernando Valley. Overnight the only noise felt within the walls of our rooms were the usual gunshots firing and the shattering of the glass collapsing from the windows of cars. I was a child who was always sat alone at school and became everyone's favorite person to pick on. I was doubted in every aspect; people underestimated me in my academic work, I was doubted when it came to success, and I was viewed as the unknowledgeable, unable to sustain grades that came easy to the high achieving students, and not me as a minority with no support. Soon after, I encountered myself with depression. I was uninterested in everything that came my way, every activity, every instrument, every sport, except for that very one: basketball. Basketball became the escape to the world I lived in. It became the center of my universe, the concentration, my priority, and my light to happiness. Shooting hoops late at night where stars and the urban streetlights became the only light, I was able to find my own, by unleashing my anger and the recollections of prejudice, all into a hoop, setting me free while constructing the driven person of which I am today.

Now I’m in high school at Samueli Academy, and I play on my high school basketball team. My Sophomore year my team and I made it to CIF, junior year was unfortunate; we had made it to CIF and lost which was devastating, but accepted it and moved on because we had another opportunity our senior year and surely, I truly did and still believe in my team as a captain. Essentially CIF came up to be my only goal and it also became something fun and challenging to look back to an overall reflect the hard work and commitment the team contributed. My current academic goals in high school only revolve around one ambition: passing my math class. In college, I aspire to become a graphic designer. I am thankful to say that my high school has an engineering and design pathway, therefore allowing me to gain the skills and expertise from the design pathway that I am right now with the Adobe programs (Illustrator, Photoshop, Indesign, video production). My design classes allow us to design merchandise for big companies and our community such as The Anaheim Ducks, The House of Blues, Orangewood foundation, Opus bank, and even Samueli Academy. We’ve created projects involving Human Trafficking infographics in Orange County, T-shirts and hats for the Anaheim Ducks as some eventually get sold at the stadium, located at the Honda center In Anaheim. In addition, we have painted murals of the “American Dream” representing perceptions of minorities in this country, invitations for clients as “graphic designers”, also advertising presidential campaigns for our school elections, along with our school’s merchandise. These opportunities and wild interaction with art, has broadened my creativity skills granting me the desire to fulfill this artistic pathway. I am also looking into majoring in physical therapy or clinical nutrition care with a second major of food science to become a nutritionist.