Jessica Cao is known as one of the most involved seniors at Freedom. She is the salutatorian of the class of 2019 and is involved in many other clubs, sports and activities in and out of school.

Cao is a member of Rho Kappa and is the president of National Honor Society, Science National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, Model UN and FBLA.

“I became an officer for these clubs to gain more leadership experience,” Cao said “FBLA helps me improve at public speaking and I get to maintain connections with people from different high schools and meet new people.”

In addition, she ran on Freedom’s track team as a sophomore and cross country her junior and senior year.

“I decided to do cross country after doing track sophomore year,” Cao continued “Even though a lot of the practices were miserable, it was still an awesome experience because of the people I got to know.”

Outside of the classroom, Cao is a tutor/volunteer at Infinite Edge Learning Center and volunteers in a lab at USF working with other volunteers on various research projects.

“It has given me a huge advantage because I’ve been able to gain exposure on a lot of the technical skills and procedures involved in ‘typical’ experiments that I otherwise wouldn’t have learned until college.”

After high school, she plans on attending Rice University, a private research university in Houston, Texas.

“I plan on studying in something related to premed, probably kinesiology,” Cao explained “I’m interested in medicine and like the idea of helping people while doing what I enjoy.”