CLASS OF 2021

Featuring Gavin Jay

Remarkable! Resilient! Revolutionary!

My name is Gavin Jay, I am 17 years old, and I attend Burbank High School.

What advice do you have for younger students?
Don't give up! Just because you don't succeed the first time you try something new, doesn't mean you'll never succeed. I began swimming in high school, much later than most. At the beginning of my freshman year I tried out for Burbank High’s swim team, but didn’t make it. I didn’t want to give up, so I began weekly lessons, as I had never properly learned the swim strokes. In December, I tried out for the swim team again, and still didn’t make it. I continued with my lessons, but realized that swimming for an hour a week wasn’t making me faster, so I tried out for a club team. In the summer of 2018, I began swimming with the BLAST Sharks swim team. When I tried out for the high school swim team at the beginning of my sophomore year, not only did I make the team, I made the varsity team.

Since joining BLAST I have been moved up twice (from gold to Junior Olympic, and from Junior Olympic to Pre-National) and am now one of the leaders of my group. In addition, I am a co-captain of the Burbank High swim team this year. I am hoping to continue my swimming career in college.


If you have an artistic passion, which artistic medium(s) do you most like to use to express yourself?
As a kid, creativity wasn’t my thing. In preschool and kindergarten, I attempted painting, ceramics, and coloring, none of which interested me. But then I discovered coding. While coding may not seem like a creative subject, as you learn more about it, it is all about creativity. Many coding languages were designed with several ways to accomplish the same task. Some options are less efficient, some have fewer lines of code, and finding those differences in approaches is fascinating to me. I will never be the next Picasso or Rodin. And even though I can play three instruments, I’m pretty sure I won’t be the next Beethoven either. But I have found an outlet for my creativity in coding, and I am eager to see what I will create in the future.


What art experience in the schools are you most proud of and how did it impact you?
I took an after school enrichment class at Jefferson that was focused on video game design. In that class, I created my first video game, “Veggie Attack.” It was a game that showed my loathing of greens. The objective of the game was simple; don’t touch any vegetables. One quick touch of a veggie was deadly. I made the game insanely difficult. It delighted me to see a game that had only existed in my imagination come to life, all thanks to code I had written. That course made me eager to learn more about coding and video game design; I was hooked.


What science or math experiences in BUSD impacted your future goals?
I am in my third year of computer science courses at Burbank High School. The ability to study coding while in high school has confirmed it is my passion, and encouraged my dream of becoming a video game programmer.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years? Do you expect the arts and/or sciences to continue to play a role in your life and if so, how?
In ten years, I hope to be working as a video game designer/programmer, so the arts and sciences will continue to be an integral part of my life.

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