The air filled with chatter and silverware tapping against plates, Enya Lu (12) describes how she rushes around a restaurant as a busser. Beginning at 5 p.m. folding napkins, drying dishes, and arranging tables, she later switches to helping out the waiters and clearing tables until 10 or 11 p.m. Over the past two years, she’s held four jobs, first working as a teaching fellow at Breakthrough Silicon Valley, then teaching for local hands-on science camps while simultaneously working as a busser. Currently, she’s a receptionist at a tutoring center.

Across all of her different jobs, Enya has broadened her worldview through interacting with various types of people. While working at the science camps, many of her colleagues were Indian immigrants who struggled to find jobs in America despite experience at tech companies in India.

“It really emphasizes to me the fact that an accent can make or break your job choice and that there are so many factors that now go into finding a job,” she said. “It made me really appreciate the basic privileges that I have; [I’m] an American citizen, I’m able to go to work and not have to worry about like visas, I’m a native English speaker or I’m really young. I think that my work experience really just made me value the ability I have, the fact that I’m able to work and get a job easily.”

Throughout her experience at these various jobs, Enya especially noticed the difference between school and work because of how her job reunites her with the outside world

“It has a different set of responsibilities, and there’s a different set of skills that working teaches you that class doesn’t, like if you’re late to class or if you forget to turn in an assignment, it’s not going to impact you that much, but if you’re late to work or if you screw up an assignment at work, you could be fired. I worked at the restaurant and if I messed up the spoons used to put in peanuts versus the one that’s used put scallions, I could literally kill someone,” Enya said. “Having that kind of awareness is something that’s really important.”

Tiffany Zhao (12), her close friend, appreciates Enya’s positivity and dependability.

“Her ability to pull through and stay positive throughout difficult times is one of her many unique traits that I admire,” Tiffany said. “She’s always there for her friends, and I mean, always.”

Although she aims to have a strong work-life balance, she remains focused on her goals, which senior Samantha Yanovsky especially noticed.

“When she does something, even if she pretends she doesn’t really care, she will try really hard to do it well and just do it in general,” Samantha said. “Sometimes she’s like, ‘Senioritis,’ but she will do it and she will do it as well as she can do it.”

As the Vice President of Silicon Valley DECA, Enya aims to enact change while still forming connections with the people around her despite the challenges with altering policies at the state level. Along with her colleagues, she visited Capitol Hill in Sacramento to discuss Career and Technical Education with legislators.

“Change isn’t just an event that you can snap your fingers to make happen, but it’s also a process, and a part of the process is about starting that chain and creating a legacy,” she said. “I know that sometimes what I’m working on right now might not be realized right now, it might not be realized in the future, but I’m confident that I’ve kind of established it as a legacy that people will then follow through on.”

Through DECA, Enya also mentors new members in order to provide them with guidance and form connections with new people.

“It’s an avenue of opportunity for growth for both the mentee and the mentor,” Enya said. “What I really treasured was just walking out of each year, having those relationships with my mentees and then becoming like friends with them afterwards. Knowing that they feel comfortable enough with me to reach out, not just over like competition issues, I think that’s what I really aim to be as like a mentor.

Mr. Juston Glass, her DECA adviser since freshman year and Business Leadership teacher since sophomore year, noted her leadership.

“She is positive, upbeat, and wants to help others. I’ve seen her grow as a leader to focus on others,” he said. “She transitioned from being someone who was just about doing the best she can to saying, ‘I want to help others do well also, because the better they do under my supervision, it only helps me.’”

Even outside of mentorship, Enya attributes her leadership and interpersonal skills to DECA. Through spending time with participants from across the country at conferences, she has used the abilities she gained from DECA to form connections with new people.

“It really broke me out of my shell in terms of a person,” Enya said. “I never imagined that one day I’d be able to go up on stage and speak in front of thousands of people at a giant conference. I would like to thank my teachers and my advisors for also helping with this; I definitely feel like before I had emotional challenges, but through working in DECA teams, I became a lot more self aware and worked a lot on people skills. The fact that I was able to connect with so many people really showed me that like all my efforts in DECA into like improving myself in terms of becoming a better leader, really like paid off.”