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Rob Coppo, the principal of Torrey Pines High School, shares his career path and tips for students in a podcast interview. He started at Torrey Pines as a student, then worked in the movie industry before becoming a teacher and eventually the principal. He talks about the challenges of managing new technologies in schools and emphasizes the importance of soft skills for students' future success. The transition from middle school to high school is described as a big change, but also an exciting opportunity to explore new classes and discover oneself. Torrey Pines High School focuses on developing professional and transferable skills to prepare students for their future endeavors. Have you met an alumni who is leading their own school? We are pleased to welcome Rob Coppo, the principal of Torrey Pines High School. In this podcast, Mr. Coppo will share his career path and tips to us, the budding graduates. My name is Rhea. I am a seventh grader at PTMS and also the founder of the PTMS Podcast Club. I have my co-host, Leaky Teun. All right, Mr. Coppo, from the Torrey Pines High School website, we gathered that you have been associated with Torrey Pines for a while, starting as a high school student, then becoming a principal. Would you like to give us a rundown of your career? Sure. Yeah, I started at Torrey Pines High School in 1982, graduated from there in 1986, went on to college after that, majored in film and television, and then worked in the movie industry for a couple of years before getting a teaching credential in English, and then I taught film and television for about 10 years at Orange Mountain High School up at And then I was lucky enough to get hired as an assistant principal at Torrey Pines High School. I spent a year in the Grosvenor District working at the CCD department before interviewing for the principal at Torrey Pines High School. So that's been now my eighth year. Sixth grade school? Well, after that, what made you decide to become a principal at the school you went to? I mean, that is so big. You're right. It was very big. It was just sort of luck, to be honest. I was working in another school district, and when I originally applied to be an assistant principal at Torrey, it just happened to be the job that was open. And so I applied and got it, and then when I came back as principal, I had an experience at the site. But I can tell you, it's pretty strange to be principal at a school you went to. It's a very unusual experience. Very interesting. Did you ever consider any other career? I considered many other careers. I wanted to be a screenwriter for a long time. I wrote several screenplays. I considered being a film editor and a cinematographer for a little while. But the film industry is a really tricky business, and I had some amazing teachers growing up and really wanted to fill the gap as I watched them retire and loved education, so I went and got my credential and my master's and decided to go into teaching. But I still dabble in writing, and I've got a podcast of my own as well. Moving on to your hobbies, what do you like to do outside the Falcon's Nest? Well, I'm a musician. I play drums in a local cover band, so I've got some buddies I play music with, which is great. I had a band for a long time all through college, so it's fun to do that again. I play a little golf with my family. I like to travel very much, and I'm a big reader, and I'm writing books. What is the best part of your job? The best part of my job is probably graduation day. I love graduation day. I love seeing the smiles on all the kids' faces. It's just a really, really special day to see those four years and really the 12 or 13 years of education that they've gone through in the public world come to an end and just that incredible celebration and satisfaction on their faces. What would you consider to be the most challenging year of all? The most challenging year or the most challenging thing? I'm sorry. The most challenging thing. The most challenging thing in my job? The most challenging thing in my job is probably all of the many new things the world likes to throw at us, like cell phones and social media and e-bikes and all of these things that we didn't create, we didn't ask for, but schools are being asked to figure out how to manage with our students. If we could focus on education, it would be a heck of a lot easier, but the world likes to keep throwing us new technology and we have to figure out how to help our kids understand. Our next question is perhaps at the back of every middle schooler's mind. What would we expect the transition to high school to be like? I mean academically, socially, and anything else you want to share. Yeah, that transition from middle school to high school is one of the biggest transitions a student will go through in their academic career. It's a very, very different world than high school. In middle school, you've got two years, so the age difference isn't as big. In high school, it's a four-year difference, so you go from being a 14-year-old walking on campus with your lunchbox and you get passed by a guy who's an 18-year-old adult with a full beard who just got off his night shift. So it's a different world when you get to high school, for sure. But it's a great transition. It's really exciting. Academically, I think it's pretty similar, especially in ninth grade. We are really focused on making sure our ninth graders have a soft landing when they get to high school. You've already been experienced with going to multiple teachers and multiple classes, but that part won't be new. The rigor is something you'd be used to. It's just normal grade-level advancement. But then you've got more opportunities at the high school because, especially at Torrey and CCA here locally, you've got a wide range of classes to choose from. So it's great because you really get to expand and try things and experiment a little bit and really find out who you are. As far as preparing students for college goes, is there any enhanced emphasis on soft skills? For example, management, leadership, communication skills, and emotional intelligence? That's a great question. We focus a lot at Torrey Pines on what we'll call soft skills. We'll call it professional skills or even transferable skills. So they're all things you need regardless of what you're going to do later in life, whether it's run your own home, run your own business, work for someone else. 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