Five years after her high school graduation, Catie Fan still carries her memories of Westview. She remembers everything, from competing in the annual dodgeball tournament, to eating at Cotija’s after school with friends, to the family she found along the way.

“I truly believe the friends you have in high school you can have forever,” she said. “The best friends I’ve had in high school are still some of the best friends I have today. [High school] is a period where you’re really discovering who you are before you become an adult, and those friendships persist. I’m still so close [with my friends from high school] and to share that common experience at Westview is such a feeling of comfort.”

After her high school graduation, Fan attended UC  Berkeley where she majored in Business Administration. While leaving Westview felt like leaving home, one of the reasons she chose Berkeley was because she could see herself finding a new community there.

“I visited campus a few times and I got kind of to see what life was like as a Berkeley student before I ever  applied to college,” Fan said. “So, it definitely felt more familiar [to me]; it felt like I could see it as home in a way.”

Berkeley’s location in Northern California, she said, offered a happy medium: it was close enough to home where she could visit on holidays but also culturally different enough from Southern California that she was able to experience new ways of life and meet different types of people. 

“A lot of my friends at Westview all have very similar backgrounds,” Fan said. “We were raised in a similar way, we lived really close to each other, we did a lot of the same things. [At Berkeley], people have really different backgrounds, upbringings and perspectives.”

One of the highlights of this new environment was the freedom Fan had to explore the city and try new restaurants. Among the fast-paced and innovative Bay Area culture, Fan found the cozy neighborhood bar El Lopo. Singing Tuesday night karaoke or playing Wednesday night trivia, she discovered a new community.

“When I went there for the first time, I was like, ‘I need to become a regular,’” she said. “The tacos and the drinks are awesome and the staff really feels like family.”

While her evenings were spent at El Lopo, Fan now devotes her days to her work at Bain, a San Francisco-based consulting company, where she interned the summer after her junior year. As an intern at Bain, Fan helped clients answer important business questions through research and data analysis.

“Bain is one of those companies that really invests in the culture and champions culture,” she said. “They focus a lot on professional development, how much I’m learning and whether I’m growing and advancing as a professional. The mentorship and focus on professional development really set me up well for any career I want to pursue in the future.”

Fan said she loved her internship at Bain, and accepted an offer to work full-time as an associate consultant.

“I had a really amazing experience [at Bain] and definitely saw myself working here long-term,” Fan said. “I think I signed [my return offer] on the same day to come back to the company and I definitely have not regretted that decision.”

Everyday at work is different for Fan. Some days, she builds slides and creates PowerPoint presentations or conducts analysis on datasets to generate analysis. Other days, Fan hops on calls with experts in the industry or runs surveys to understand consumer trends.

“I’m working with incredibly bright people, but also people that I would want to be friends with in my personal life,” Fan said. “We do truly interact as friends and share our lives with each other and bring our genuine selves to work.”

Even though she’s working in San Francisco, Fan still sees San Diego as a home base.

“It feels like I always have a support system to come back to and someone who’s always rooting for me,” she said. “Coming back to Westview and seeing the same teachers teaching the same classes in the same classrooms I used to be in is such an amazing feeling.”