As a way to hear from this year's graduating class in their own words, the Palo Alto Weekly asked graduating seniors from local schools to record short videos answering rapid-fire questions about their high school experiences.

Keep reading to see what students from Gunn and Palo Alto high schools had to say. Their answers have been edited for clarity and concision.

Oren Schube, Gunn High School

What is your favorite memory from high school?

My favorite memory from high school is not a typical one. I took a drawing and painting class called Art Spectrum during my first year at Gunn. They gave you a sketchbook to work out your ideas before you transferred them into the final project.

Whenever I was moving ahead of schedule, or if I didn't have work to do, I started drawing little Homer Simpson heads in the corner of one of the pages of my sketchbook, and then another one beside it, and then on and on. By the end of the year, I had filled the entire page with little Homer Simpson heads.

Sure, it amounted to nothing, but just the boost of unabashed joy that I got from it was a weird experience that's probably going to stick with me for a while.

What's a word that describes your senior year?

In one word, my senior year was probably an "improvement." With personal stuff and also the two-year lockdown that we all went through, granted the bar was pretty low, but I think that my senior year was the best year of my high school experience.

What's one word you'd use to describe remote learning?

In one word, remote learning is "confusing."

On the one hand, you don't have to commute anywhere, so I got to sleep in way more than I usually do. On the other hand, you're not getting the same amount of help that you would be getting in person with your assignments.

For me, it was during junior year, which is the hardest year of high school. This is no fault of the teachers, they're dealing with the same thing out of nowhere, but it was a difficult year, academically. Well, a difficult era, academically — it wasn't just one year.

Finish this sentence: "In 10 years I'm going to be..."

In 10 years, I'm going to be doing something I like. I'm not 100% certain about what that thing is going to be, but I know that I won't continue with something that I don't see value in for that long. If it's for my own benefit, then maybe, but having passion about what I'm doing is really helpful for me to actually get things done.

I'll struggle with a 20-minute math thing, while several times for my art classes, I'd skip meals and work for like nine hours straight on some painting that turned out just okay. But I enjoyed the experience, so it was worth it to me.

What's the top piece of advice that you would give to incoming high schoolers?

One piece of advice for incoming high schoolers is to make friends as soon as possible. I mean, make sure that they're good people, but I struggled socially my entire time in high school.

Part of it was that I was literally isolated, but also when I was in-person, I still felt pretty isolated because I didn't have a support network that I could rely on to get through the more difficult parts of high school. So yes, make friends with good people as soon as you can.

What are you most proud of accomplishing or overcoming in high school?

The main thing that I'm proud of myself for overcoming is clinical depression.

It extended a bit into the latter half of middle school, but high school is when my mental health problems came to fruition. Dealing with a wavering desire to keep going in general does not really pair well with trigonometry.

Luckily, I got professional help and I've worked on myself. I'm definitely not cured or anything, but it's improved drastically since I started addressing the issue. That was one of the harder things that I've ever done.

Nysa Bhat, Palo Alto High School

What is your favorite memory from high school?

It would probably be during my sophomore year; it was our second spirit week. Everyone was participating and building our float. There was a huge sense of community amongst our grade, and it was a really positive experience for me to witness and be part of.

What's a word that describes your senior year?

"Community." After COVID, I think everyone in our grade, especially, did not want to take (for granted) this year. We wanted to be part of as much school-related stuff as we could be, since we had just gone into lockdown for a year and a half.

We hadn't seen each other in such a long time, so everyone wanted to be friends with each other and be part of all the events and activities.

I had not seen that before in our grade and it was just like a really wonderful thing to see, for my senior year, especially.

What's one word you'd use to describe remote learning?

A word I'd use to describe remote learning would obviously be "isolating."

Not being able to be in a classroom with my peers and be able to talk to my teachers physically definitely took a big emotional toll on me and my mental health. I'm an extrovert and I want to be around people and talk to people and have conversations. The fact that was inhibited, especially in my junior year, was definitely a very isolating experience for me.

Finish this sentence: "In 10 years I'm going to be..."

In 10 years, I think I'm going to be starting my residency as, hopefully, a surgeon at a hospital. That's what the goal is to be and that's what I hope I can be doing in 10 years.

What's the top piece of advice that you would give to incoming high schoolers?

The top piece of advice that I would give to incoming high schoolers would be to join as many activities as you can.

Obviously, I'm not saying to join 100 activities, but find something that you truly are passionate about because you're going to meet so many people there. You're going to meet a lot of people in your classes already, but if you're part of a club or sport or any activity, you're going to form your own community and it will be a wonderful thing to have.

Another piece of advice would be to build good connections with your teachers. I'm not saying this for the rec letters or for college or anything. It's just like a really nice thing to have a good bond with your teachers because they are your mentors, and they're important figures in your life. That's someone you want to build a good connection with.

What are you most proud of accomplishing or overcoming in high school?

One of my big accomplishments that I hold dearly would be participating in wrestling.

I remember in middle school, my friends and I would always joke about me joining that sport because I used to be really into martial arts. I didn't think I would do wrestling just because it was a very male-dominated sport, but my PE teacher encouraged me to join because we had done this wrestling unit.

Just the fact that I was able to join such a highly male-dominated sport and actually make a name for myself and actually do something with it, that was a big thing for me.

Find the rest of our graduation coverage in "Celebrating the class of 2022: A roundup of stories, graduate lists, photos"