Many Wayne Hills students, juniors and seniors especially, are excited about college or ready to hear back from colleges they’ve already applied to, but a select few want to take a different path. This applies to senior Kyle Cho who wants to go directly into the workforce after graduating from high school with the class of 2023. 

Kyle has lived in Wayne all his life and up until his junior year, he wanted to go to college (like RISD, Syracuse or NYIT) as most kids do, and major in Graphic Design. His love for Graphic Design came from his father, who is a graphic designer for a company called KPMG. He took classes in high school that helped with his initial love for graphic design including yearbook, art and of course graphic design. 

However, during Kyle’s junior year, he decided that Graphic Design was not his true passion and his love for cars that was present throughout his life was something that he wanted to pursue in the future. When he came to the decision and had to tell his parents, they were skeptical that their son didn’t want to go college, a path taken by both of them, as well as their oldest daughter and Kyle’s older sister Suha. 

“My passion for cars has always been with me at a young age with the exposure to the internet. I’ve always loved looking at cars and it was a dream of mine to learn about them and build my own car.”

One of Kyle’s best friends, senior Andrew Sabeh, was also surprised and skeptical about Kyle wanting to pursue working with cars instead of going the typical college route, saying, “I wasn’t expecting him not to go to college. I know his parents very well, so I didn’t think his parents would allow it. Once I processed it, it realized that he’s doing what makes him happy and I think it’ll work out.”

Kyle landed a job at Ford as a service technician through the Auto teacher at Hills, Mr. Hopper, who saw Kyle’s potential and wanted him to learn from experienced workers at Ford. 

Just because Kyle’s daily routine doesn’t consist of hours of studying and homework, doesn’t mean he it isn’t full of hard work and dedication.

“As of right now my day starts at 4:30 am. I get ready for school, pack my bags, make my lunch and get to the gym at 5:00 am. I then work out for about an hour and a half, shower and change for school. From 7:20-11:55 am, I’m in school and I get to work at 12:30 pm. I work until 5:00 pm and get home around 5:30, due to rush hour traffic. I  shower, eat dinner, and do homework. Whenever I have free time during weekdays I like to better myself and my knowledge so I study more about cars and do online classes (provided by Ford) that I get paid to learn for. When I’m not doing that I study stocks and how I can invest my money in order to become wealthy as soon as possible. From Friday to Sunday, any free time I have I like to spend time with friends and family because those connections are just as important as anything else.”

Andrew Sabeh has also started to go to the gym with Kyle every other day at 4:30 am before going to a full day of school and track practice and states that he’s “impressed with [Kyle]. It is not easy to keep up with it and he really shows dedication by going everyday. When he is at the gym he has a very hard workout, and then school and work, which just shows the hard work he puts in everyday.”

Kyle is able to do this through Wayne Hills Work Based Learning (WBL) program where he attends school for part of the day, and then leaves early to go to his job. He has to be present in school for graduation-required classes like English 12 and Physical Education, and he also takes Precalculus and Auto with Mr. Hopper for two periods if it is in his block rotation for the day. 

Kyle has big goals for his future working with cars, stating that in 10 to 20 years, he wants to be a master tech and own his own mechanic store, or be the head technician at a big name brand like Porsche, Mercedes, or McLaren. He also wants to be financially stable enough to retire within the next 20 years. 

Although Kyle does leave school halfway throughout the full school day, he does still get to experience the highlights of being a senior in high school. Some of his favorite memories in high school, thus far include the spirit rallies, Friday night football games, playing on the varsity football team when he was just a sophomore, and junior formal.