Asking Stanford: What year do you think about the most?

2008

My parents went and watched the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and I remember having a pair of sunglasses they bought there with the five mascots on them. I was unfortunately only three years old at the time, so I missed it. Then I immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia in 2013, so I also missed the Winter Olympics of 2010 and then proceeded to lose that pair of sunglasses at the Vancouver Science Museum. 2008 therefore signifies the start of these unfortunate events. — Alaina Zhang ’27

2012

I can’t help but think of the nostalgic times of 2012. Between hitting the “Call Me Maybe” golden move on Just Dance 4, decorating my igloo in Club Penguin and jamming out to classic pop hits on the way to school, my life felt like an endless loop of small joys. There was no homework-induced stress, no strained relationships, no looming job applications — just Temple Run high scores and the questionable trend that was “Gangnam Style.” — Megan D’Souza ’29

2015

Our greatest trouble was the politics of playing cops and robbers — tussling the woodchips beneath our running feet. When the snow covered the grass, I huddled with my sister during recess and passed our hand warmers like a hot potato. My friends and I invented “shoe-flinging” off of the swings — cautiously timing their launch so innocent passersby were unharmed. We organized “protests” as a class and marched ourselves single-file around the wooden playground curb. All of my classmates were going to stay by my side forever, and as far as I was concerned, that was all that mattered. This dreamscape would fade, as most do, but it regularly reminds me the power of group cohesiveness and mutual support, as well as the permanent lessons of growing pains. — Kelly Wang ’26

2019

It was a stroke of luck that I entered middle school the September before the pandemic hit. Even aside from the impending arrival of COVID, though, I think about 2019 as one of my most formative years. My last year of elementary school — 6th grade, if you can believe it — was marked by a growing awareness of myself as a social creature. I realized that there were certain people to whom I belonged, and friends whom I wanted to preserve for a lifetime. There were other things, too: my first genuinely bad onset of pollen allergies, falling in love with writing and reading (thanks, in part, to the recesses where my allergies forced me to stay inside) and really traveling the world for the first time. Put it all together, and 2019 was the year where I found myself becoming my own person. — Daniel Xu ’29 

2022

Queen Elizabeth II died a year after Prince Philip, and it was in 2022 that it dawned on me that the living (those who have always already existed, those who appear on newspapers) and the dead (those with grayscale pictures and “was” verbs on Wikipedia) are not two tribes but a continuum. The next year, Charlie Munger and Henry Kissinger died. But it was really the Queen’s funeral that gave me the all-so-banal, sober clarity on the inevitability of death — of my loved ones, myself, everyone. — Angikar Ghosal, Ph.D. student, Graduate School of Business

2023

This year was the first period in my lifetime that I lived completely by myself. I attended Stanford Summer Session from June to August, living almost two thousand miles away from everyone I’d ever known, and only as a high schooler. I had only ever been away from home for a week at a time in short summer programs and had never lived for more than a few days outside of my home state. But this experience made me fall in love with Stanford and prepared me to leave home when I was admitted for undergrad. It was also the year of my junior prom (the better one by far), and the start of my senior year in marching band, where I wrote a drumline feature that we performed at football. 2023 might not have been my graduating year, or my frosh year, or anything of the sort, but it was filled with a lot of great memories in a transitory period of my life. — Kaleb Gjestson ’28

2024

It was the end of junior year and the start of senior year, and everything revolved around college applications, senior events and trying to enjoy the passing moments. Summer 2024 stands out the most. I left my hometown, Naples, and went to Yale for an astrophysics research program, which felt unreal. Most days were spent doing research, walking around campus and staying up late talking about life and space with people who became some of my closest friends. We bonded over late-night snacks, nonstop group chats and the sense that the summer really meant something. By the fall of senior year, life slowed down in a good way. I had more time to hang out with friends after school, drive around at night and actually be present instead of constantly stressing. I think about 2024 the most because it was when I felt both rooted and in motion — still home, but already starting to leave. — Melita D’Souza ’29

2025

I graduated high school, travelled in China for the first time in over a decade and completed my first quarter at Stanford. Those last few days of summer were sweet and slow; I had perfected a way of life and spent my days in quiet contemplation. Then came the rushing tumult of freshman fall, sweeping away my quiet thoughts. Writing for The Grind is my way of giving those thoughts the space to resurface. — Lily Zou ’29

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