Correction: According to San Gabriel Valley Tribune, in 2016, Grecia Monasterio and Jennifer Lopez both placed at the Girls Wrestling State Championships.
As Class of 2024 comes close to graduation, students reflect and envision their upcoming futures considering their careers, higher education, and passions. This series highlights the accomplishments, hardships, and goals of seniors acknowledging their journeys after high school. Senior Juelz Taylor is an advanced placement (AP) student, athlete, and social rights advocate.
Taylor explained her gratitude for experiencing a variety of what high school offered her and allowed her to explore numerous interests.
“I feel like WestCo was such an amazing fit for me because I really got to dabble in a little bit of everything. I’m president of a culture club, in class council, a sport, obviously, take AP classes and I just feel like there’s a wide variety of things I was able to take advantage of,” said Taylor.
Taylor has been captain of wrestling for three years. She competed at the CIF State Championship and placed top 24.
“It was the first time anybody from our school has made it in over a decade. So, I felt like I was really putting myself into the shoes of the history of our school. I was really accomplished but I was nervous,” Taylor said.
Taylor is also the founder and club president of the Black Student Union (BSU) for three years, teaching students on campus about social activism and the African American community.
“The most amazing thing has done for me, is helped me get more engaged with my own culture. I obviously have to do some learning and some reevaluating of my morals and my thoughts and I just feel like it’s very beneficial for our community,” said Taylor.
Taylor plans to pursue a career in law with hopes of creating change and continuing the advocacy and discipline she learned through wrestling and BSU. She applied to colleges including the University of Southern California, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Irvine, California State University, Fullerton, and California State University, Long Beach.
“I think one of the biggest things I learned in life is everybody you speak to has something to teach you…and I want to be a part of a bunch of other people’s stories, you know, teaching them something, whether it’s small or on a big spectrum,” said Taylor
Emotions are high with graduation only four months away; with excitement also comes fear for students during such a transformative time of their lives.
“My biggest fear is just not finding anything I’m truly passionate about because I feel like that was a problem in the past before I found things like wrestling,” said Taylor.
Taylor shared teachers who were significant in encouraging her future goals throughout high school calming some nerves.
“Ms. Rodriguez has always been a big support and a big motivator…giving me lot of ideas that I would have probably not found on my own. She was just very open to everything. And Mr. Potts, my advisor, also has just been very cool, very supportive of the stuff I do in the BSU and what I want to do in the future. I was able to make a difference in our school, and in our little community and I want to do that, on a broader spectrum in the future,” Taylor continued.
Looking forward, the future holds many opportunities for all and Taylor explained what her future means to her.
“I think my future means being selfless, having a little bit of pride, not necessarily for myself, but for my parents, for the people who have supported me through everything. I want to make them proud. My future means a lot of fear. I think there’s a lot of things to be scared of, a lot of changing dynamics in my life and in the world, and I want to be able to overcome that. But most of all, success I know that whatever it is that I do in life, I’ll be successful as long as I keep persevering,” Taylor said.
