Alumni Spotlight: Aji, Cohort 20

Since childhood, Aji has had an incredibly active mind – always searching for outlets to explore his interests, expand his horizons, and engage with his community. When he started middle school in 2007 however, he was itching for an outlet for his energy; then, he got a letter from High Jump. By the time he started his first summer session, he began to see paths opening up: “I had all of this energy and High Jump gave me a lot of different stimuli. It was this interactive kind of learning through different avenues while creating good relationships along the way.”

Through these different avenues, Aji came out on the other side of High Jump feeling confident in charting a path forward that led him to finding himself and his community while thriving academically and professionally. Aji feels that the path of his life would be “drastically different” if not for High Jump:

“It’s like one of those butterfly effect situations where, if you weren’t exposed to certain people or certain things it would probably not allow me to be where I am today or have my eclectic nature of how I move through the world.”

Academically, High Jump opened the door for Aji to feel more confident in his communication and writing skills during English classes while also deepening his love of math and science. One of Aji’s favorite High Jump memories goes back to a Science experiment that allowed him to see the real-world implications of all the work he was doing in school:

“In Science class, we were able to count calories – so we took a peanut, a Cheeto, and a few other items and burned them. And then depending on the temperature and how long it burned, we were able to calculate the calories…Getting that exposure at such a young age gave me this awareness of how you think about food in general. It’s like, oh, this is fuel; this is legitimate; you have to burn this. So that’s something that stuck with me very heavily.”

Aji’s eclectic nature then found an incredible spark of passion. In his Theater elective at High Jump he found his voice on the stage and was encouraged by his teacher to follow that voice: “That theater class allowed me to get into improv, to get into choir – it was this catalyst that let me double down on my interests and explore them more.”  This led him to sing in choir at Lincoln Park High School and pursue improv as a hobby, which he continues to this day. The empowering community he found at High Jump let Aji confidently explore who he was and what he was passionate about. 

“The best way to summarize my High Jump experience over those two years would be to look at it from a relationship building aspect – understanding how to navigate not only certain classrooms, certain environments, but also have those conversations with people that you aren’t as privy to in your day-to-day school life – bringing a lot of different Chicago kids together and finding a sense of camaraderie with the other kids. There were definitely certain anxious moments meeting people you’re not familiar with. You go into a little auditorium that first day and see the anxiousness of a lot of the other people and it kind of breaks that barrier – it’s like, ok, we’re all kind of coming into this same situation, let’s take it as is and see what happens.”

Long since his time in High Jump, Aji carries that feeling of community with him and even some of those relationships with the friends he made in his High Jump cohort: “It’s an interesting way how after High Jump, you go about your roundabout pathways, your journeys in life, and then get brought back through all these different social connections and realize you go way back and have that authentic connection of High Jump.”

Once he got to high school and college, Aji saw how the exposure to these academic and social environments at High Jump empowered him to feel confident navigating his educational journey and challenging himself to do more. “High Jump definitely gave me that sense that there’s more effort that I can be putting into my studies.” He took that and ran with it to attend Lincoln Park High School for their International Baccalaureate program and pursue an Economics degree with a Sustainability minor while at the University of Iowa.

Out in the workforce now, Aji is excited to continue honing his skills and expanding his horizons. After working as a Sales Executive at C.H. Robinson, one of the world’s largest logistics and supply-chain companies, Aji sharpened his business acumen at Salesforce before leaving to join Linkedin where he has thrived as an Account Director for the past two years.

“High Jump’s core values definitely have bled into how I operate from a job functionality perspective, into how I set my days, and into knowing how to have these rich and nuanced conversations with VPs and executives.”

From his time as an excited and effervescent High Jump student to his position now as a rising star at Linkedin and in the Chicago business community, Aji has been guided by pursuing his passions and building community. We have no doubt he will continue to do so wherever he goes.

Hear From Aji on What Supporting High Jump Means to Him