In this excerpt from his All-School meeting remarks, Jacob Lee '26 explains how you don't need a "perfect plan" to achieve your goals: 

"For the past two years, I’ve worked with Sikorsky, a division of Lockheed Martin, on developing civilian and military helicopter technologies through our Advanced Math/Science Research program, known as AMSR. On paper, it might seem impressive, but what I want to share with you all today isn't about the work.

It's about how someone like myself, who really didn't have a plan going into high school, ended up where I am.

When I started freshman year, I was, safe to say, completely lost. I had just moved to a new school in a new country, and everything familiar to me had sort of disappeared.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life, where I was headed, or how to begin. I’m sure that kind of uncertainty is something many people in this room have felt before, whether academically or personally.

But coming to Berkshire my sophomore year prompted me to confront that uncertainty. Instead of waiting to feel ready or taking the safe route, I chose to start exploring. I pushed myself into harder classes every year and tried things simply because they interested me. 

Not all of it worked out in the end, of course, but that process taught me how learning sometimes doesn’t come clearly or naturally, but rather through trial and persistence, even when it feels slow. 

Back to my research on helicopters: that interest in aviation began much earlier. It started during the COVID-19 pandemic when isolation caused many of us to search for meaning in new ways. 

For me, it was spending countless hours on a basic flight simulator at home, connecting with people from around the world who shared my same curiosity. These unique times stuck at home showed me the power of finding an interest and choosing to stay engaged, even when no one is watching. 

When I joined AMSR my junior year, I realized I could take that curiosity in aviation from four years ago, and put it into practice in a more demanding space. 

But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. My research work was very messy. It didn’t come easily. My data didn't make sense, my designs didn't behave as expected, and on multiple occasions, my electronics quite literally caught fire!

But that uncertainty and those failures weren't a setback. Each failure was an opportunity to learn and overcome adversity and to build back up. I leaned on resilience and patience to think through problems rather than avoid them. I loved the work I did, and I dedicated myself to it.

I also want to be honest: I faced a lot of challenges in my academic classes, and the work never came easy to me. I know my teachers here can attest to that. But I kept trying and working hard, asking questions and fighting through challenges over the years. What changed everything was finding a passion that gave me direction. Something that I could stick with even after graduation, even outside of my GPA. For me it was aerospace engineering, but it could be something completely different like hockey or soccer, or entrepreneurship, or philosophy. Or maybe something you haven't even discovered yet! Choosing to stay curious and continuing even when progress feels slow makes all the difference.

So as we celebrate academic achievement today, I hope we also remember what makes those achievements possible. You don’t need to have everything figured out. You don’t need a perfect plan. What matters is the courage to begin, the humility to struggle, and the persistence to keep going. If you haven’t found that spark, keep exploring.

If you commit to the process, the outcomes will follow in many ways you may not even expect. Maybe one day you’ll find yourself looking back and thinking, “Hey, I didn't know what I was doing at the start, but I kept going, and that made all the difference.”

Thank you all for your time, and go bears!"

Jacob Lee ’26 is a three-year senior from Tenafly, N.J. and a prefect in de Windt.