As graduation approaches, several seniors will be leaving Diamond Bar High School far behind to start the next chapter of their education around the world. After this summer, they will attend schools across the globe.

Among the seniors heading abroad is Stephanie Tang, who plans on attending University of Toronto.

Going into business with a focus in marketing, Tang has had prior experience helping her mother, who does interior design, with her website and other business related aspects.

Tang plans on spending at least two years in Canada with a backup plan of transferring back to an American university. Tang said she hopes to incorporate business with marketing and become a creative director.

Meanwhile, Mia Thacker will be travelling across the ocean to the United Kingdom to attend University College London.

With a childhood dream of studying in England, Thacker’s British citizenship made it easier to pursue European politics in the country where part of her family originated.

“I chose [UCL] because I wanted to be in a big city; it has a lot more opportunities, especially for my major. It’s one of the alpha cities, so it helps that I’m in the center of whatever happens in the UK,” Thacker said.

Thacker was involved in Model United Nations, her middle school debate team and is currently taking French. She plans on staying in Europe and hopes to one day work for the United Nations as an ambassador or in British domestic politics.

Additionally, Angela Liu will travel to Florida to attend Ringling College of Art and Design, one of the top ranking colleges for 3D animation.

Liu was influenced by Hayao Miyazaki, well-known Japanese film director, to focus on 3D animation.

“Whenever I watch his movies, it’s very moving and makes people cry,” Liu said. “It’s very powerful and I want to be able to do the same thing.”

Liu dreams of becoming a 3D animation director in the future and one day leading her own successful animation movie like Miyazaki.

Also going out of state, James Tang has made plans to attend University of Washington in Seattle.

With a focus in industrial engineering, Tang hopes to find new experience in Washington from big companies like Amazon. He also plans on traveling and working in different places, but ultimately wants to return back to California.

“I’ve always been interested in the field of engineering and economics,” Tang said.

He has had prior experience in Northwestern University with the National Student Leadership Conference.

Washington opens up new opportunities and Tang hopes to experience a different environment than Diamond Bar and learn more about society.

“I think I just want to better the world and [continue] advancing it the way it’s been,” Tang said.

Katherine Cheng will be heading to UCR to major in East Asian studies.

“I really like learning about culture, language and how people interact in different countries,” Cheng said.

Cheng decided to study Asian countries because of the diversity of their culture. She plans on going abroad for a year or two after studying, and hopes to one day teach language and culture, or history.

Kaitlyn Lee will be attending Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas this following school year. Exploring her possibilities, Lee visited SMU and fell in love with the campus’ environment and people.

“When I went to visit, I loved the campus. It was recently ranked No. 1 nationally, and it has a gorgeous campus, all the students were very nice and the professors really care for the students at SMU so that’s what really attracted me there,” Lee said.

Instead of following the traditional pre-med track, Lee decided to major in math and hopes to pick up a double major in business or biology, or minor in her second choice or in Chinese. Because SMU is a private school, Lee would be able to achieve her goals with no restrictions.

“I keep reading and researching that it’s been getting increasingly harder to get into med school so I thought being a major outside of bio, biochem or chemistry would make me stand out from other med school applicants,” Lee said. “I also chose mathematics because I feel like it’s something I’m fairly good at.”