Briant Catapusan started attending Armijo as a freshman and, despite the pandemic, he hasn’t wasted much time in his four years. “I’ve been going to Armijo since 2018. I’ve previously been involved with leadership, but now I serve my role as a Flight Commander within our school’s AFJROTC unit. I’m definitely going to miss the homecoming dances, as those were some of the events that I looked forward to the most each school year,” he said.

While he is aware of the negative impacts of COVID-19, he said that he has been glad to have experienced it as “it taught me how to persevere even during times of struggle. It made me value my senior year a lot more after not seeing my friends for long months at a time and it taught me not to take anything for granted. 

“My favorite memory at Armijo was participating in the Senior Homecoming Skit (Class of ‘22) because I feel like it brought the whole class together in order to show out for our final Homecoming Skit and I met a lot of new friends while doing it.”

When the senior year is over, Catapusan is planning to go to college at UC Davis with a major in computer engineering. “I also plan to pursue a career in the army, so I hope to find a career mixing both elements after my schooling in the future,” he said. 

The future is important to him, and he knows it is also valuable to incoming students at Armijo. “My advice to you is to always do the best to your ability and always persevere, no matter how hard you may struggle, and learn from your experiences,” he said. “I’ve had my own fair share of shortcomings during my time here but I wouldn’t give you the same advice if I hadn’t found a way to overcome it. 

“If there was one thing I could change about Armijo, it would be the attitude that some students have towards the school because sometimes it seems as if many students don’t value their education as much as they should,” Catapusan said.

Like most teens, he enjoys hanging out with his friends and playing video games, but he is also into longboarding. He also used to be on a dance team, although he isn’t doing that any more. His role model is his brother Kyle, who graduated from Armijo in 2015, earning the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. “I hope to follow in pursuit of his tracks,” he said.

His parting words for this interview were “Shout out to the boys (you know who you are)!”