SF International HS Span Tutor Sees “Old Self” in Students He Helps Meet Challenges and Attain Goals

At San Francisco International High School’s ACE Learning Center, it’s recognized that continuing education is linked to job readiness. The Span Mentor and Span Tutor Program creates jobs that build students’ professional skills and make them more employable beyond the SFIHS community. This is the start of a series of SFIHS Mentors and Fellows who report on their experiences with the ACE Learning Center paid program.

By Guest Blogger Xiaohui, (English name Herry), San Francisco International High School Alumni and Span Tutor and Mentor

Xiaohui, also known as Herry, graduated from SFIHS in 2015.

My name is Xiaohui and my English name is Herry. I am from Taishan, Guangdong, China. I was born and raised in this small coastal city in southern China. I immigrated to the U.S when I was thirteen years old in 2010. I graduated from San Francisco International High School (SFIHS) in 2015. Currently, I am a second-year student at UC Berkeley. I am studying political science and planning to study political economy as well.

My experience at SFIHS was meaningful because SFIHS provided me various opportunities to learn from the real world, in which books were not able to teach us. For example, School Without Walls allowed us to travel around the city and learn from different places about different topics. I have gotten to know about what I could not learn from school. I visited many organizations that support immigrants by defending their civil rights and providing a voice to speak up for them. I found out that this was what I am passionate about. Soon, SFIHS gave me an opportunity to intern at a political campaign to learn more about what I could do individually to support immigrants.

This semester, I am back to our SFIHS family again, but with a different role. Now, I am working with students as a mentor and tutor with students taking Child Development classes at CCSF. I offer support to students’ homework and share my college experience with them. In addition, I help them with their college and scholarship applications. I wanted this job because I could get a chance to contribute to our SFIHS community in a different way. Since I am more experienced and mature now, I could support the younger students like an elder sibling. This job is sometimes challenging, in which there are things that I do not know because I did not go to their class. But I feel motivated and passionate about this job. I could see my old self from these students since many of them are facing the challenges that I faced when I was in high school. In this case, I feel glad and accomplished that I could advise them and help them attain their goals.