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Humans of Brooklyn Tech, 29 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn, NY (2026)

06/26/2020

It was my freshman year: hundreds of scrawny, sweaty 14-year-olds packed into the cafeteria, signing up for every club they were moderately interested in. I pushed myself through the crowd, flowing like a vector field from one side to the other, until finally finding the table marked “Photography Club”. I was ecstatic.

I had discovered an interest in photography during the previous spring, where I would wake up at dawn to take the same photo of the sunrise, day after day. With no one to discuss the alchemy of photography at my middle school of 18 students, I sought to find a community.

My eyes immediately diverted to the figure standing behind the club representatives. I approached him, excitedly asking what lens he was sticking out the window of the 7th floor window: “It’s a 70-200 2.8 L, ever heard of it?” “Duh. My name’s Jasper, what’s yours”. “Chris, Chris Persaud”. Chris laughed, instructing me to join the advanced photography club instead.

I did. My first assignment was photographing the Winter Instrumental concert, where I accidentally dropped a lens while sitting in the center aisle during the quietest moment in the entire program. I can still remember Mr. Fischer’s glare when I walked into class the next day. I was hooked, finally finding my sought-after community. I was excited to have something to do and improve my skills as a photographer.

So here we are, four years, 2 cameras, and 50,000 frames later. To say that photography was instrumental to my Tech experience would be an understatement. Taking portraits continues to humanize my daily life. Telling stories of artists, scientists, poets, engineers, and actresses alike who make Tech so special has been life changing.

Thank you, Chris, Annie, Jakub, Willis, Audrey, Ayman, Alex, Justin, Eda, Kyle, Mark, Michael, Jesus, Jasper S., Alexa, Kelly, and every other person who has helped me along my experience as a photographer.

Thank you, Ms. Sciabarra and Ms. Nottingham, who believed in me enough to photograph high-stakes events.

Thank you, everyone who has ever been in front of my camera. Your patience is incredible.

Meet people. Tell their stories. Get out of your comfort zone.

--Jasper Waldman, Admin of HOBT

04/03/2020

Hey.
We miss you.

In this time, more than ever, we need some way to connect with each other. Send us your stories, and we'll post them.

Love,
HOBT

06/18/2019

I joke that music is in my blood.

My mother is an opera singer and my father is a composer, so music is central to my life. I’ve been in band and the spring musicals for the past 4 years, and I’m known as the girl who sings to herself during AP Calculus and Flight School. Anyone who meets me assumes I will follow in my parents’ footsteps and go to conservatory, but I am inspired to follow a different path.

Growing up in New York City, I zipped uptown every weekend to the glorious building that held the universe’s secrets: The American Museum of Natural History. I would spend hours running through the gargantuan hallways and squealing when my mom brought me to my favorite exhibits.

AMNH opened my world to STEM, and saved my life in the process. The idea of a “happy home” was foreign to me for many years. My parents brought me into a world where marital disputes were the norm. While I never felt unloved, my day was consumed with the fear of my parents’ interactions. AMNH was one of two places where I felt safe to be myself, the other being theater class. Instead of feeling stuck at home while my parents argued about their divorce, I searched the planetarium and wondered why Pluto wasn’t among the planetary models of the Solar System.

I became passionate about advancements in engineering and technology that push human boundaries. I am determined to be part of the next generation of thinkers and help guide humanity in its journey to the stars. So, after months of studying for the SHSAT, I scored just over the cutoff for BTHS and began to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps (Paul Larowitz - Class of 1943). I joined the aerospace engineering major at BTHS to put me on the path toward my goals.

Though the past 4 years have been difficult, BTHS has given me lessons, experiences, and friendships that will last a lifetime. Now that I am off to the University of Maryland as a Banneker/Key Full Merit Scholar and I have been chosen as a U.S. Presidential Scholar in Career and Technical Education, I know that AMNH and BTHS have given me the tools to succeed. I am proud to say I am a Brooklyn Tech Engineer.

05/10/2019

Sometimes we forget to love.

Think about it. We wake up every morning and trudge to school, dragging the weight of our boulders for backpacks and the anxiety riddling through our bones for that test we didn’t study for. We carry the weight of never-ending, sleepless nights under our eyes, repeating the same words everyday: “I’ll sleep on the train.” We let little things that happen throughout the day pester our minds, staring at our feet as we walk through the checkered hallways waiting for the day to end, waiting and waiting on a fresh start. Waiting for the week to end. The month. The year.

Now think a little harder. When we rushed out of the door this morning to head to school, we forgot to kiss our mom’s forehead and say, “I love you.” We were so focused on our aching, drooping shoulders that we forgot to hold the building door open for our neighbor, who was pushing a stroller with one hand, and holding her daughter’s hand in the other. We stare into space on the subway, waiting for sleep to overwhelm us, but we forget to look out the window and take in the sunrise, and the changing colors of the leaves. We’re so anxious about whether or not we’ll fail our exams that we forget to say a little prayer, and look over to our friend and wish them good luck. We get so intertwined with these curveballs in life that we forget to cherish the little things we have. We forget to love.

So I guess this is turning into a PSA to learn to love the little things in life. Some advice? Start small. Smile at the person next to you in class. Listen to your best friend rant about her day even if it’s the same story everyday. Hug your parents before bed. Take a moment of appreciation for that little mole on your cheek. Learn to love the little things before they’re gone.

05/07/2019

Anyone who has heard my name or knows of me will say that I’m “smart”. “You will get in anywhere” or “You are one of the smartest people I know” are phrases I hear every day, and every time I hear someone say it, I break into laughter. First off, I am not smart, I am far from it. Nobody sees it, but I am the student that goes to tutoring every day and every lunch period. I always had to work for my grade, and almost all of the time it felt like I was working harder than everyone else and still doing not improving.

While I may not be book-smart, valedictorian, or have an above 100 average, I am driven, passionate, and strategic, all skills that aren’t taught in school. For me that was always the problem with school, I saw enough professionals and attended enough conferences to understand that the skills that lead to success are never taught in school. School was always a place that taught complacency, that taught us to blindly do as we are told. In return, we are given a metric system that determines our value: grades.

Coming to Tech, I knew I had huge dreams. I saw myself as the next Mark Zuckerberg and I knew I could get there, but I knew grades were not the way for me. Grades and numbers (specialized test scores) would get me into college and a comfy job at Goldman Sachs or somewhere else just as nice. But at what cost? For all the time and effort I would invest in getting that perfect grade on a project or studying for hours to get that high 90, I could be at an event meeting my next business partner or a future employer or, better yet, learning how to network, pitch, and communicate. With the time I focus on raising my grades from 95’s to 99’s I could be doing so much more.

The smartest thing I ever did is completely throw myself into my passions. I took every opportunity to explore every interest I had from designing to business planning to engineering. In the process, I developed my own metric system, one not based on numbers, one that focuses on my growth and achievements. My value doesn’t come from my grades, it comes from the real-world skills that I took the time to develop over the years. Your’s should too. You should find your own metric system, explore your passions, and grow professionally. Ask yourself to what extent does that 99 or 103 matter to me? Would I be happy with getting 90s or 85s for the freedom and time to explore opportunities? You need to assess your values, understand what you want to do, and do it in a way that your comfortable. That realization and assessment of my values is what I attribute all of my success to.

05/03/2019

I have fallen in love with life.

Life used to be sprinting home after club, flipping through Quizlets and study guides. As a first-generation American, I felt I owed it to my parents to dedicate myself to my work. To live a prosperous life was to live my parents’ American Dream.

The people I met at Tech allowed me to redefine life. The friends I made at this school are some of the most vibrant people I’ve ever met; they are thriving, beautiful, passionate. Their presence make blues seem bluer and reds seem redder. Best of all, they deal with my crazy and loud personality ;)

Now I know life to be playing hide and seek in a Target, darting behind the furniture and putting on floppy hats as disguises. Now, life is playing spoons near the pier and dying of laughter when Washima reveals she had all the cards we needed (I still hate her for that). Life is devouring sandwiches with Tracy and Anna after hitchhiking to a Model UN Conference. It’s screaming about free cheesecake with Sebastian on the corner of Dekalb. It’s having a water gun fight with Taffy, Mark, Shiv and Tracy in Fort Greene. It’s watching a dog inhale my chicken montana while Su Su and Youssef offer no sympathy whatsoever.

Life is reenacting musicals with Royta on the floor of her bedroom. It’s Max catapulting paper balls at me while Anna and Maggie blow me kisses. It’s debating if water has a taste with Diana and Annabelle during lunch (it so does). It’s Sarah and I making the best ramen in the world in my kitchen and hiding evidence of ever using the stove. It’s hitting a balloon back and forth in the breezeway with Rachel and Annie. It’s late night calls ranting about old dead white guys with Ayan, Ahmad, Diddy and Daniel. It’s lying next to Sanjid watching her watch Netflix. It’s loving and laughing.

I have so much admiration for my parents’ courage in coming to a new country to give their children a better life. I promise to make them proud, but I won’t live in a gray world to do so. Now, I allow myself to walk home at a reasonable pace. I allow myself to binge-watch SNL and bake chocolate-chip cookies. I allow myself to define who I am and find my own passions.

I allow myself to love and to love and to love.

03/05/2019

"Respect has always been something I’ve held close to me. I always thought that being short was the reason nobody would take me seriously, but in reality, it was letting people push me around that made it hard to be respected. I used to do things people would tell me to do thinking it would make me more likable. I would often go out of my way to suck up to people thinking it would make me a better person, only to end up being everyone’s pet.

Earning respect is less about making decisions to please others and more about making decisions for yourself. Once you have self-respect, you no longer have to act differently around other people. Learn to live life for yourself and not for anyone else. That being said, make sure you treat your close ones right and cut out the ones that disrespect you."

02/17/2019

"That which is real is irreplaceable"

02/07/2019

I don’t think you need to see his face to know the man in this picture.

Paul Hoftyzer was a man of passion and of class. His heart poured out for the students, all 5,000+ in the school and the countless of alumni around the world. And when we, as a student body, had an opinion about something, he would be there to listen to EVERY student. Even when our principal was not there, Hofty was there with us, and for us. If there was one person that can represent what Brooklyn Tech is all about, Assistant Principal Hoftyzer was the go to man.

In this photo, over 150 kids on May 25th, 2016 sat in the First Floor center section to protest the dress code. And of course, who other than Paul Hoftyzer would be there to listen to all the students. Over 150 kids were there, speaking about the dress code policy, berating at him about their disfavor for the policy. And he was there to listen to every single person.

Hofty knew that when he set foot into this school, this was the place for him; his home. Though his life is now passed and gone too soon, I can safely say that his heart will still continue beating through the hallways of our beloved high school.

Thank you Paul Hoftyzer, for the passion and commitment you gave to Brooklyn Tech and for every student who step through the door for our finest education. We love you, and you will be missed.

12/19/2018

Assalamuallaikum everyone, I’m Gazi. To start off, I didn’t expect these last 3 years to be some of the best years of my life so far. I walked into Brooklyn Tech with the expectation that I’d be pushed into a corner and ignored by everyone. That wasn’t the case. I’ve met some amazing and supportive people, and among those people are my best friends. Even though everything seems to be going well for me, I’m always left thinking that I did something wrong to everyone. I was a complete jerk back then, so the guilt from hurting people in elementary and middle school makes me think that all I’m good for now is to continue hurting others. I wanted to use high school as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, and I can say it worked for the most part. I’m certain that most people I know think of me as an overall great guy, and if I act like a jerk, it’s usually as a joke. But then there are some people that I hurt without realizing it, and the guilt continues to grow. It feels awkward to apologize to those people, but I have to be responsible and take the initiative to do so. Having this guilt led me to realize the beauty of forgiveness, and it also brought me closer to my religion (although my parents think I’m drifting away from it). Despite how painful it was for me to live with so much shame, I’m glad that I was able to learn something out of it and become a better person in the end. If you know me and I’ve hurt you in the past, I apologize for what I’ve done to you and I only ask for your forgiveness. I also want to thank the people that stood by my side through all of this. It’s weird to think about what I would’ve become if it weren’t for all you.

11/26/2018

My name is Jimbo and I go meow.

10/15/2018

Whether good or bad, everyone finds a connection with Tech, and I found mine through SGO. My first impression of SGO was during freshman orientation. I remember seeing a junior on the council and admiring the way he spoke with confidence, the way he gladly helped us navigate through long, unfamiliar halls and smiled through all of it. And that’s how I aspired to be.

I’m so glad to be the VP of SGO because I have grown so much from it.

I feel genuinely happy when my friends tell me how they enjoyed Talent Show, or how excited they are to participate in Flowers For Favorites. I love when people can comfortably come to us, and advocate for something they don’t like or want to change. And that’s what makes all the late-night meetings, summer stress and planning all worth it.

Humans of Brooklyn Tech

06/26/2020

04/03/2020

06/18/2019

05/10/2019

05/07/2019

05/03/2019

03/05/2019

02/17/2019

02/07/2019

12/19/2018

11/26/2018

10/15/2018

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