Clad in their bright blue caps and gowns, the Los Altos High School class of 2013 flooded onto their school's football field to celebrate its graduation on May 31 -- marching in step to "Pomp and Circumstance," as performed by the LAHS band and orchestra, while family and friends looked on, cheering, waving and snapping pictures.

After some introductions and a speech from LAHS school principal Wynne Satterwite, Vanessa Barajas took to the podium to encourage her fellow classmates not to try too hard to shed some of the qualities for which teenagers are best known.

Speaking to the 400 graduates, Barajas insisted that there is nothing wrong with being a little naive, brash or proud.

Though the three words are often associated with inexperience, recklessness and hubris, she sees things differently. "I choose to see naive as optimistic, brash as adventurous and proud as confident," Barajas said to her fellow graduates, encouraging her peers to see things her way.

"Naivete enables us to focus on the possibilities, rather than the worst-case scenarios," Barajas said. "When I say, 'be brash,' I mean be adventurous and follow your gut. Anything worth doing risks the possibility of failure."

And if and when members of the class of 2013 experience failure, pride will help get over that failure. "We must be confident in our decisions and live without regrets," she said.

Los Altos High School | Class of 2013

Jonah Abkowitz

Victor Amaya

Miriam Amaya Atayde

Austin Anaya

Lucas Frediana Andrade

Michael Andris

Liam Armstrong

Edgardo Arreola

Valentin Arreola Amaya

Chloe Arrouye

Lenoy Avidan

Mohan Avula

Alexandria Bahl

Allyson Bakos

Vanessa Barajas

Ernesto Barriga-Patino

Shadee Barzin

Nathan Becker

Antony Bello

Paul Bergevin

John Beutter

Rishi Bhargava

Asha Bhote

Alex Bianchi

Timothy Biggar

Alex Blackburn

Arthur Bogdanovich

Eric Bohrer

Charlotte Bowie

Maxwell Braxton-Taylor

James Brewer

Nolan Brown

Miya Burbach

Austin Cappelletti

Paola Carbajal

Alice Carli

Alex Carr

Sydney Carr

Tali Caspi

Mariela Castillo

Julian Cavera

Paola Cervantes

Gisela Chairez Rodriguez

Melissa Chan

Yan Chan

Miaulian Chang

Ivan Chavez

Philip Chen

Ruibin Chen

Wilson Chen

Emily Cheng

Esther Chevallier

Allan Chio

Julia Chmyz

Cleo Chung

Kevin Coelho

Courtney Coffman

Joshua Cohen

Rebecca Cohen

Julian Colodny

Austin Conlon

Miles Contreras

Hannah Cooke

Sarah Corner

Elizabeth Cortez

William Crameri

Irvin Crisanto

Runming John Dai

Megan D'Andrea

Kealani Davenport

David Davis

Jonah Davis

Tim de Visser

Samuel DeBacker

Caroline Deng

Michelle Deng

Monique Diaz

Stephanie DiBattista

Steven Dittmer

Pauline Duprat

Mai Dvorak

Natalie Dwulet

Blaine Dzwonczyk

Brianna Ellington

Lindsay Emrick

Christian Enriquez

Diana Escobar-Landaverde

Jesus Espinosa Ventura

Kyle Evans

Adam Evard

Amelia Evard

Noora Fahimi

Tal Faintuch

Sophia Falco

Fernando Farias

Dana Feinberg

Hao Feng

Maria Fernanda Fernandez Crisanto

Megan Feroglia

Brigyt Figueroa

Richard Flores

Aaron Fong

Sean Fox

Dominic Gachina

Diana Galindo Cuevas

Victor Galvez

Alexis Garcia

Marissa Garcia

Jordan Garvey

Samuel Gavenman

Zoe Gelman

Mabisa Gharti Chhetry

Carson Gibbs

Megan Girczyc

Mary Katherine Glen

Kara Godfrey

Melissa Goldman

Esteffany Gomez

Giovanna Gomez

Julian Gomez

Nicholas Gonzales

Jovani Gonzalez-Soria

William Grau

Yvonne Greenen

Cindy Guerrero

Sung-Yee Guo

Karen Guzman

Alexandra Hammond

Hannah Hansen

Anna Harea

Richard Haslacher

Alice Hau

Spencer Havekorst

Madelyn Healy

Eric Heintzen

Jennifer Helguera

Diana Hernandez

Paul Hernandez

Ruben Hernandez

Ana Herrera

Jocelyne Herrera

Troy Hetzler

Leah Heyman

Grant Ho

Jacqueline Hoang

Jacob Hogge

Connor Holmes

Caitlin Hoover

Jami Hsia

Monica Hsu

Catherine Hua

Oscar Huang

Sophia Huang

Melanie Hugoo

Tin Huynh

Kashaf Irfan

Matthew Ishii

Morgan Jaffe

Amritha Jayasankar

Christian Andrew Joaquin

Michael Johnson

Lexus Julien

Daniel Kahan

Nikki Kashani

Oliver Kask

Libbie Katsev

Zaineb Khan

Arman Khayyat

Afsheen Khosraviani

Richard Kim

Samantha Kim

Amanda Klein

Nicole Klepper

Macaulay Kliman

Virginia Knight

Sara Kobayashi

Aarthi Kodiyalam

Satya Koppisetty

Katherine Kouvelas

Kaitlyn Krautkramer

Margherita Lacapra

Vincent Lai

Anthony Lazzara

Tiana Le

Megan Leak

Janzen Lee

Jessica Lee

John Lee

Laura Lee

Marisa Lee

Andrew Leidenthal

Savanna Li

David Liang

Cathy Liu

Jacqueline Liu

Jerry Liu

Josephine Liu

Sam Lodestro

Alexandra Lopez

Karla Lopez

Jose Lopez Hernandez

Nicolas Louie

Christina Luk

Drew Lytle

Marissa Maldonado

Benjamin Marimon

Jennifer Marino

Ron Marks

Mario Martinez

Antonio Mata

Tania Mauro

Sara Mayer

Audrey Mays

Mathias McAfee

Ian McColl

Audra McComb

Steven McLean

Sean McLoughlin

Esperanza Medina

Liliana Medina Garcia

Felix Mejia

Luis Melo

Freja Mickos

Kevin Mo

Elisaneomai Moli

Joy Montgomery

Edwin Montiel

Juliet Moore

Corey Moran

Daniel Morris

Khaoula Mouman

Kaitlin Mueller

Nathanael Mueller

Lucien Muller

Emma Murray

Camryn Nakano

Prashant Nathaniel

Ada Navarro Ulriksen

Kelcey Negus

Seldy Nelson

Carson Nemelka

Rachel Norton

Giulia Olivieri

Jessie Ordonez

Monica Orozco

Daniel Orozco-Tejada

Francisco Ortega Carrillo

Anthony Otey

Luis Padron

Molly Palu

Hyeona Park

Moses Park

Ciera Pasturel

Katya Pchenitchnikova

Shelby Pefley

Mark Peng

Jade Perry

Taylor Peterson

Sabrina Petros

Jacqueline Pham

Rachel Pinkelman

Joshua Tree Poblete

Tyler Polen

Daniel Ponce

Vladislav Popovsky

Joanna Porras

Jacqueline Portelli

Ryan Posey

Delaney Pozzi

Taara Prasad

Daniela Preciado

Cameron Putnam

Collin Putnam

Jose Quijano

Sarah Rabin

Nisha Ramesh

Pauline Ramirez

Yuridia Ramirez

Zackary Ramon

Sana Raza

Brenna Reid

Thomas Rigodanzo

Joshua Rivas

Elizabeth Robertson

Kelsey Rodriguez

Laura Rodriguez

Teresa Rodriguez

Conrad Rogers

Kenya Rojas-Ramirez

Ximena Romero Fernandez

Luis Rosas

Emily Rubin

Jared Rulison

Dmitriy Rumanov

Jose Rutiaga

Matthew Rylak

Dennis Saenz

Edward Salisbury

Adrian Sanchez-Cuevas

Drew Sanders

Griselda Sandoval Ahumada

Eddie Sartor

Sparsha Saxena

Kayhon Sazegari

Miriam Schachter

Jacqueline Scher

Lisa Schill

Jack Schonher

Noah Schramm

Mark Schreiber

Sharon Serper

Jennifer Serrano-Perez

Ideen Seyed

Ahmadali Shakeri

Manaz Sharifi

Connor Shaw-Case

Hongyi Shi

Nicholas Shmelev

Chloe Siegel

Arthur Simmons

Ido Simon

Kendall Simon

Spencer Simonides

Bhavdeep Singh

Melvin Singh

Kamala Sloss

Richelle Smith

Kaitlyn Snider

Camila Sol

Julia Son-Bell

Stephen Song

Sonia Soria

Amanda Spielman

Jason Spielman

Louise Stephan

Joshua Stephens

Ethan Stern

Kieran Stolorz

Megan Stuart

Wei-Han Su

Dominic Suares

David Survilo

Spencer Tang

Jessica Tepepa

Sitar Terrass-Shah

Andrew Thomas

Stasha Thomas

Tashina Thuraisingam

Christopher Tien

Punnawit Tokhem

Devan Tormey

Wendy Torres

William Torres

Dimitri Trembois

Erin Tsou

Fernando Valadez-Mercado

Getsemani Valencia

Willem Van Eck

Francisco Vargas

Glenda Vargas

Tianna Vasquez

Selena Vazquez

Liliana Vega Bautista

Adriana Velasco

Shilpa Venigandla

Mia Venuti

Jasper Vera

Nathanael Vieira

Brandon Villa-Aranda

Angel Villasenor

Kiet Vu

Kirsten Walden

Lauren Waller

Amy Wang

Janna Wang

Lorraine Watkins

Natasha Welingkar

Alyssa Wemyss

Jackson Wen

Tian Cheng Weng

Kelvin White

Aaron Williams

Sarah Wobber

Chelsea Wong

Scott Wong

Erin Woolley

Eric Wu

Abbey Yacoe

Sarah Yam

Kelli Yamaguma

Darius Yazdani

Daniel Yeager

Michael Yen

Jonathan Yu

Allison Yuen

Sarah Zanjani

Jessica Zaragoza-Chavez

Araya Zavala

Ashley Zhao