Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a Fairfax County public, magnet school in Alexandria, Virgina that offers a comprehensive college preparatory program emphasizing the sciences, mathematics, and technology. Each year, about 400 students are selected based on aptitude, interest in math and science, and intent to pursue a college degree. The classes offered at TJ are all honors and advanced placement (AP) level. Further, the cirriculum includes a number of special programs, namely an integrated biology, English, and technology (IBET) program, technical research in labs senior year, and a technical internship program. At TJ, I participated in many extracirricular activities, especially the junior varsity and varsity math teams and the junior engineering technical society (JETS). The highlight of my experience, though, was interacting with so many intelligent, promising, and highly motivated students. We were optimists. We wanted to discover a cure for cancer, a single formula that yields the set of prime numbers, room temperature superconductivity, and cold fusion.