When you meet Koen Miyashiro ’25 for the first time, you’ll quickly discover two things about him: he’s exceptionally smart and exceptionally friendly. He’ll speak first, curiously asking a question or sharing an observation. When you respond, he’ll show genuine interest and will continue asking questions or sharing stories. Before you know it, you’ll be deep in conversation with him, trying to keep up as he speaks rapidly and excitedly. Because of experiences like this one, many people at Jesuit High School Sacramento call Koen a friend.

While working with Koen to organize Echelon Catapult classes and events, Director of Admissions Mr. Matthew Ramos ’05 has watched Koen grow into a capable and confident leader.

“[Koen] takes direction well, learns well, and works well with older guys,” Mr. Ramos said. “But I know he’s stepped into leadership roles, both on Robotics and Echelon Catapult, amongst other things, which is really cool to see. So going from someone who’s following the lead well, learning, soaking it all in, and learning enough to take a leadership role on those things as he steps into an upperclassman role is super cool.”

Koen is also passionate about passing along knowledge to others, which is the driving factor for his involvement with Echelon Catapult.

“[Echelon Catapult] fulfills this core goal of mine to educate students on things that I really, really love,” Koen said. “So that’s why I teach a robotics class. It’s why I teach a psychology class. And it’s why, hopefully in the future, I can get more people to join Echelon Catapult who love teaching as much as I do.”

Connecting with others comes easy for Koen. He’s learned to reach out and form relationships with everyone, including faculty and students from other grade levels. 

“I was friends with a lot of people from last year’s senior class, and friends with people from the classes below me,” Koen said. “I’ve met all these amazing people through my time at Jesuit by talking to people. The most important thing I learned at Jesuit is [to] make friends with people and talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to because there are a lot of really cool, awesome guys at Jesuit and awesome teachers at Jesuit that you would never get to know otherwise.”

No one is more familiar with Koen’s friendship than Ali Zaidi ’25, who’s known Koen since fifth grade and is also a leader in Echelon Catapult. 

“Koen is a natural ‘people-person’ and is great at connecting with others and making them feel welcomed,” Ali said. “He’s also very insightful and inventive, always learning and creating. As a friend, he’s deeply caring, loyal, and fun to be around. He’s always able to make me smile and laugh; I’m really grateful to have him in my life.”

Despite all that he’s accomplished at Jesuit, Koen wants to be remembered for being a good friend. He’s taken on the responsibility of guiding and supporting other students as they grow more comfortable at Jesuit.

“Because of all these people I’ve talked to and all these friends I’ve made, I know a lot more about Jesuit and the campus as a whole than most students,” Koen said. “It’s important to me that I get to help other people understand Jesuit’s campus as well as I do. I think being remembered for being the encyclopedia of Jesuit would be nice because I just like helping other people figure out what [they] want to do at Jesuit and after.”