Saba is a senior at Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco this fall. His favorite subjects are math and physics.
Saba says the coursework at Lick-Wilmerding is hard, but he loves the challenge. When asked whether the transition to high school was difficult, Saba replied, “Not at all. It has been a breeze. I was academically very well prepared for high school, especially in writing.” He has also become more comfortable with the workload over time. Saba’s advice to those entering high school is, “Stay true to yourself, keep the future in mind at all times, and balance is the key to success.”
During his sophomore year, Saba participated in a service trip to Senegal led by his wood shop teacher, a Senegalese national. The team built benches and desks for the village as their service project. “I spoke no Wolof (the local dialect) when I arrived and lived with a family of nine for three weeks——it was great!”
A nationally ranked windsurfer, Saba placed 4th in the country in his age group last year, and last summer, he focused his energy on creating and teaching a course on Design Thinking through the Design School at Stanford University. Saba and four other high school and college representatives created a three day long workshop attended by educators from around the world: An Educator’s Guide to Design Thinking. “I like building things that are useful,” he explains. This workshop was attended by teachers and administrators from Prospect Sierra. We can attest to the level of planning, creativity, and the excitement of this program!
Knowing of Saba’s interest in building things, David Clifford, the metal shop teacher at Lick, introduced Saba to David Kelly, CEO of IDEO Corporation. “David is an engineer who hates engineering,” says Saba. Kelly taught him that “design thinkers can be creative but sit down and do the work, too.”
With such a creative mind, what is Saba interested in studying in college? “Mechanical engineering, most likely,” he smiles. “Engineering is the tool that will make the ideas I come up with real.”