Jennifer Tejaijaya is a sophomore student who is very involved in the CT community. She’s an Officer at Model UN, and a member of DECA, FBLA, Rotary Club, Tri-M, Drama Club, and the varsity-level Chamber Orchestra. Despite these achievements, Tejaijaya’s challenge is balancing her responsibilities with her social life. 

Tejaijaya is a first-generation immigrant and has family in Indonesia. “It motivates me to like, work harder because it’s like I realized that I have these opportunities. And I really can’t just throw them away because if you throw them away that was the point of coming here,” said Tejaijaya. As a first-generation immigrant, she feels that she has a different reason for trying so hard. “I think it’s because we have a different reason to get up in the morning and to do things because it’s like, you get up in the morning to not provide, but help your family succeed. I feel like sometimes other people do it for themselves and I feel like I’m more doing it for my family,” said Tejaijaya. 

Tejaijaya feels like her biggest challenge is balancing her time. “I feel like sometimes I just feel so insanely busy,” says Tejaijaya. Sometimes she feels like she does too much with her classes, clubs, and extracurriculars.”It’s to the point where I’m like, This is crazy, I need to quit all these things I can’t do anymore, but then you get the benefits of doing the work and putting in the effort and then you’re like, maybe it is worth it and all these things.” She also gives up time to spend with her family and friends in order to succeed in her work. “I feel like a challenge is just really keeping up a lot of relationships while doing all this work. I feel like everyone from the outside just sees me as this put together person, but you make sacrifices for what you do and my sacrifices are the time that I have to spend with my friends or family.”