Kaitlyn Capella, a senior majoring in business management is among the few graduating students with a 4.0 GPA.

Out the door and into the real world

By: Angelo Lanham

Posted: 5/15/08

As graduation day approaches, some students prepare to don the cap and gown and walk. Some seniors at the top of their class said they felt like graduation came none too soon.

Xiaoling Lao, a senior electrical engineering major at the top of her class, said she can't wait to move on to the next phase of her life.

"I prefer to live in a reality," said Lao, who currently has a 3.89 GPA. "I don't want to stay in academia all the time. I want to live in a practical world. In order to do that, I need qualifications."

Although Lao is a senior, she still has two core classes and a few electives to pound out.

About maintaining an "A" average, Lao said the trick was to stay focused.

"I say it's all about motivation," Lao said. "It's all about attitude."

Kaitlyn Capella, a senior business management major who currently has a GPA of 4.0, would seem inclined to agree with Lao's eagerness to move on.

"I'm ready for the next phase of my life," said Capella. "My family is ready for the next phase of my life, too."

Before being accepted at SJSU, Capella could very well have gone down a different path and become an air traffic controller. She said she took an aptitude test that determined that the best career for her was either that of a doctor or an air traffic controller.

Since she had no interest in being a doctor, she said she decided that being an air traffic controller might be a nice change of pace. So, she visited the University of North Dakota, which she said has a good program for becoming one.

"I was looking for direction," Capella said. "When I really thought about it, it didn't appeal to me so much."

Unlike Lao and Capella's urgency to move on, Pradeep Senanayake, an electrical engineering major, feels the need to savor his education. He said that in college, especially in electrical engineering, the philosophy is to get in, take your classes and get out, because there is generally a job waiting for electrical students on the other side.

"I've chosen not to do that, willfully chosen not to do that," said Senanayake, whose GPA is 3.92. He said he plans to attend graduate school in the fall.

He understands that his perspective toward academia might be in the minority.

"I have friends who have well-paying jobs, and grad school is a continuation of being a poor student, scraping by." He said. "I feel alive when I'm doing this stuff, so there's a purpose."

If you asked Senanayake how he kept his GPA so high for all these years, he couldn't tell you. "You don't think about it when you do it. I'm not a genius, I'm not anything special. It's the basics," he said, adding emphasis on understanding homework and lectures.

Senanayake said he started his college career at Cabrillo College in Aptos before transferring to SJSU.

He graduated last December in electrical engineering, but stuck around to help a friend perform an experiment researching biomedical devices. Before that, Senanayake completed his senior thesis, which involved constructing a microchip that acts as a filter for optical communication.

While working on his senior thesis, Senanayake said he realized that a sturdy base in physics would help, so he took some classes on his own time. He also collaborated heavily with the UC Santa Barbara while constructing his senior thesis.

In fall, he'll be off to UCLA for graduate school. He had been faced with the choice of attending graduate school in the UK or Los Angeles.

"L.A. is L.A.," he said, "It's very full."

He said the weather was one reason for choosing California, since Senanayake said he has been spoiled by San Jose's weather.

He also thought it would make sense to attend a school in the proximity of the university he had collaborated with during his project.

Kaitlyn Capella did decide to endure England's weather, in a town called Stroud, in Gloucestershire, England.

She said she was interning as a nanny for "three kids in a huge house," and that the experience was not unlike suddenly becoming a mom.

While most of her classmates chose internships within London, Capella wanted to explore the edges.

She said that since the outskirts of England have fewer immigrants than London, it makes it a bit more "English" around those parts.

"You really learn the culture living with a family," Capella said.

About maintaining her 4.0 GPA, Capella said the key is motivation.

"I've always been a very self-motivated person," she said.

Capella said this should help her continue to learn on her own outside of the classroom.

"I think I'm looking forward to learning in a different way," she said. "I've been doing this for eight years, I'm ready to learn on my own. I'm ready to just pick up a book and read on my own."

"I definitely would like to study the whole psychology of motivation, what motivates people," she said. "I consider myself a motivated person, but I don't know what makes me that way. I'd like to figure it out."

While Capella is reading about motivation, Xioling Lao could very well be reading just about any non-fiction that catches her fancy.

Lao said that while in China, she began to read English fiction to improve her English. She has since progressed to non-fiction, which she said she prefers "because I grew up. I want to know what the real world is like."

In her spare time, Lao enjoys reading history, political and business books and magazines, although she said studying takes up quite a bit of her time.

She enjoys the music of Christina Aguilera and Gwen Stefani, and occasionally listens to the pop music from China, which she said is "about the same."

Some students said they were ready to move on.

"Now that I won't have a lot of homework, I'm going to transfer all those hours into my job, some into hanging out with my kids, and drag racing," said Greg Castro, a senior business management major.

Richard Alvarado, a senior anthropology major, called the experience of SJSU "very rewarding."

"I've always wanted to make sure that I got the most out of my education," he said, "I know that a lot of people in the world (would be) willing to do anything to be in my place, taking full privilege. The fact that I succeeded with high marks is very rewarding."