Jace Hoffman

The Senior Scoop is a podcast where the host interviews graduating seniors about their experiences and plans for the future. In this episode, the host interviews Jace Hoffman, who has been at the school since kindergarten. Jace talks about his decision to start taking school more seriously in middle school and his interest in becoming a game developer. He also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of attending a small school and his dislike for online learning. Jace expresses his sadness about leaving his friends and classmates behind but looks forward to the future. The Senior Scoop is an opportunity for the community to hear directly from the senior class about their experiences, hopes, dreams, and reflections. The Scoop is a result of a collaboration between the administration and the Class of 2023. We hope that you'll enjoy chilling with us each week as we dish up a sweet treat of accumulated Wolverine wisdom 13 years in the making and introduce you to the fantastic young men and women who will soon become AGS alumni and tomorrow's community leaders. I'm your Senior Scoop host, Chris Ming, the proud superintendent of the Augray Sims School District. Thanks for listening. Now let's dig in. Good morning, Augray Sims listeners. We are capping out our Friday of an unseasonably warm spring. And I'm here with another senior from the graduating class of 2023. I'm graced with Jace Hoffman. So, Jace, thank you for being here this morning. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm doing great. Well, Jace, I'm really excited to have you down here in my office today for this recording because I don't know all the seniors really well. I know some of them a little bit better than others from sports and stuff like that. But I don't know you really well. So I was really excited to see you sign up to come on down. Why don't we start with just a little intro. Tell me a little bit about you and why you're interested in even talking about your senior experience here. I'm a senior, and I first came to this school in kindergarten. So I've been here for quite a long time. I didn't really sign up for many sports, so that's probably why you didn't hear me much. I did sign up for t-ball when I was little along with track a couple years ago, but I soon dropped out of that. I'm pretty well known about the school with the kids and everything. But other than that, yeah, I guess I can kind of see why you don't really know me much. There's nothing wrong with that. That's more to say about me than it is to say about you. And quite frankly, the first two years I was here, I didn't leave my office too often. I was dealing with that whole C-19 thing that was going around. I was dealing with all the stuff that fell out from that. So nothing wrong with not playing sports. Those just happen to be the opportunities that I get to see high school kids more often. But you've come very, very well recommended within the senior class. I know you're pretty active with Mr. Freeman's classes, right? Yeah, I'm pretty active with his classes along with a couple others like Mr. Stoll and Mrs. Richardson's. Okay. So you're one of that rare breed that started here as kindergartners and you've done for the full 13 years. Pretty much, yes. Pretty much. Did you leave at some point? No. I guess I could say when I first started, I really wasn't into it, I guess. I didn't really do good in school, but coming to realize now, I'm doing a lot better. Okay. So somewhere along the line, you probably found out some secret, right? Right. Or did something about yourself. Do you know what that was? Not really too sure, but I guess I could kind of say that I felt like it was now important to actually be on track and stay sure that I need to do this and make sure I can graduate. Okay. So was that a decision that you consciously made in elementary, middle, sometime in your high school path? Sometime around at the end of my middle school path, I decided, you know what, I should probably actually do this. So was that something you came to on your own or were you motivated by someone or something in particular? You could kind of say it was both. Okay. Care to elaborate? The teachers always kind of motivated me that I could always do it. And then I thought to myself, I should probably stop being a Debbie Downer. So here I am. Now I'm actually about to graduate in a couple months. Well, that's exciting. That's a hard thing to decide when you're in eighth grade. Middle school tends to be a bit of a lost era for a lot of people where those years just, they don't make a whole lot of sense. There's a lot going on in your body and your mind. It doesn't seem like anything makes sense. So kudos to you for figuring that out before you started high school, before all the things started counting for real and all that. So now that you are graduating, what are you thinking for that day after graduation or next year? I've been really thinking about becoming a game developer. I just wanted to make people happy, so I always wanted to do that. It's always been my dream to do that. But for starters, I might just go get a job, make some money so I can get prepared to do that. Okay. So game developer. Are you talking about digital games? Are you talking about board games? Digital games. Okay. So do you have a certain genre that you enjoy playing that you think might be in your realm for development? Platformers and stuff like that, along with RPGs. They're really fun. Okay. Well, help me and the other listeners out because I understand that those are English letters and words, but myself, I don't know what a platformer, RFG, is that what you said? RPG. RPG. Okay. What are those? A platformer is like, do you know Super Mario Brothers? Yeah. That's what a platformer is. You can either go with a 2D platformer like those classic games, or a 3D platformer like some of your new games like Crash Bandicoot or something. And then RPGs are like, they're kind of like Pokemon and then Final Fantasy. Okay. Those are terms from my past, so I know those ones. So what got you interested in working on game development and that idea as a possible career? Well, I don't really understand what you mean by that one. I mean, for one, I didn't understand that that was a career. I mean, I guess inherently I know that people have to develop them if we have them, but I don't know much about that career. So what have you been able to learn about it that maybe enticed you into thinking that might be the way you want to go with your life? Well, with Mr. Stoltz's class, I've been learning coding, and we were able to make some games out of that. They were pretty small, but they were games. And so that taught me a couple things about making games. But I'm going to be after school, once I graduate, I'm going to be able to buy a class to where I can actually learn about these things more. Oh, okay. So is there a degree program for that, or is it more of like a competency-based thing? Or how does that work? It's like a competency-based thing. You can just join. You just have to pay. So it's pretty straightforward. It's just like your online class you would normally take in school or something. Okay. So that's the future. And, you know, the future is one of those things where, you know, you can think about it and you should think about it, but often, you know, just crossing the finish line and graduating is in your sights, and that's wholly understandable. So let's talk about the past a little bit. I've been here since kindergarten. Maybe didn't dedicate as much focus on it until maybe a little bit later. So if you had any advice to give other students, students who might be like you, who maybe are just kind of going through it a little bit, just kind of drifting a little bit until they find that point, what would you tell them now? I mean, you're top of the class here. You're heading on out. You're the big man on campus here. You're going to be walking across that stage here very, very soon. We've got a lot of kids here who are going to be here a lot more time. So what would you do to help them out? What would you say? If I were to say anything, I'd say always pay attention to what you need to do. Make sure you can actually get through it. Sometimes it might be too late. Okay. So there is a timeline on things. Okay. Excellent. And so how did you go about doing that? How did you set yourself up with the understanding that there are some deadlines, there are some dates and things you have to finish that by? What do you think? I always, like, looked on Skyward, made sure I had everything on, like, turned in and everything. Always make sure to do that so then you're well prepared for what's coming up next. Okay. All right. So it's random question time because I like to throw a random one out. And I gave you one in the little pregame before the recording here that you'd heard, so I can't go at that one here. But let me throw this one out. What is the weirdest thing that you've ever eaten? The weirdest thing I have ever eaten would probably have to be calamari. Calamari. Okay. And what did you think? It wasn't bad. It's just really chewy. It's a weird consistency. A little bit like eating a rubber band. Yeah. Yeah. Like chewing on rubber. Yeah. Maybe not the most appealing thing, but all right. So what was the context in which you tried that for the first time? We were on a vacation in Mackinac Island. And I saw that on, like, the menu. So I decided, you know what, I'll try something new. And I tried it. It wasn't bad. It tasted good. It's just that was the only flaw. Okay. It is a very acquired taste, I will give you that. Okay. So you've been at Algrave Sims. It's been your entire experience. And obviously we have three small classes in here. So what would you say are some of the advantages and disadvantages of having a school our size? Some advantages are, is, like, you get a lot of options in, like, what your classes could be. Like how we have our new seminars, like, strategy games, art, stuff like that. But then some disadvantages being probably, like, crowded hallways sometimes for the most part. You got to be fair. I'm a little bit surprised to hear crowded hallways is one of the things that's one of the downsides. Personally, I taught in a school with 2,800 students, a high school. And we had one-way hallways because there were so many people. So when I walk our hallways here, not quite the same feel of being, like, on a New York City Avenue walking up and down during rush hour, right? So it is interesting. The context in which you're used to kind of throws things a little bit. So if you were to say that there's one thing that you wish would have been different while you were here, something that you could wave a magic wand at to make better, what would you say? If I had to say anything, it would probably be, like, the seminars. Instead of them being, like, a seminar, they'd probably just be, like, normal classes. Okay. So we've done a couple things different with seminar this year especially where we're trying to give almost like a buffet of options where people can go in and get an experience doing something they really enjoy. So sometimes it's used for academic support. Sometimes for tutoring, things like that. But other times it's to try out some different electives that we may offer more full-time in the future. So I'm actually – I didn't pay you to say that. I'm glad you did say it because we are – we're using that to test out some things that might be interesting for students in the future. But we did want to make sure that we gave enough offerings that would keep people intrigued and kind of focused and excited by the end of the day. So, all right. Let's say, if there were one thing that you'd change about your schooling experience, like you personally as a student, your schooling experience, what would you change? I would probably change the online school, like the classes online. I don't know. I just don't like the new momentum, I guess I could say. Sure. It just doesn't feel right than what it used to be. Okay. So the online thing is a little bit funny because, you know, when you were talking earlier about the gaming, yeah, obviously you're going to have to do some type of courseware and stuff like that as part of your program that you're thinking about for the future here. But they are – it's a hard – it's kind of an acquired learning, isn't it? Yeah. Then you were in that situation where you were in high school when we shut down and everything was forced into the pandemic learning and all that. What would you say about the skill of online learning that is different about brick-and-mortar classroom learning? If I had to say, it's pretty easy. People just don't really focus more at home than they would at school. It's just they're, like, in their comfort of their living room in their room. They just don't really feel into it, I guess I could say, because I'm one of those people. Okay. So I had a teacher very early on, I want to say it was sixth or seventh grade, who said you should study the way that you are going to take the test. And so that one always stuck with me where if I would try to study or read at home, I couldn't do it on a couch or in a comfy chair or something like that. I needed to sit at the kitchen table, you know, ridge-backed, not the most comfortable in the world. Not that I didn't wish our classrooms were a little bit more comfortable, but I understand 100% what you're saying. It gets a little bit too easy to do all those other things at home instead of the, you know, the work, the business of learning. All right. So, James, it's been a wonderful interview so far. We want to give you the opportunity for any closing thoughts you might have about your Audrey experience here at the school or the community or the people you've met, maybe a shout-out, anything like that to bring this to a conclusion. I must say I am going to miss all my friends and all the classmates I've met along the way throughout school. Once it's gone, it's going to be kind of disappointing if I think about it. So, yeah, it's going to kind of be sad to see it go. But the good news is you can always come back and return as a graduate, as an alum. We'd love to have you back. So, James, thank you very much for taking the time out of your day. I think you missed peer-to-peer today, right? Yeah. So you're okay with that, missing that just a little bit? Yeah. It's in the gym, so I'm kind of happy. Okay. Well, again, thank you for giving up some time of your day. And, once again, that was the Senior Scoop. And our guest today was Senior Jace Hoffman. So thanks for listening, and make sure you tune in next week to hear more words of wisdom from our graduating seniors. This has been a production of the Arboretum School District. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you join us again soon for another Senior Scoop.