A FINE MIND—Daniel Paris, a 2005 Oak View High School graduate, displays a photograph taken at his recent graduation from USC where he finished with degree in psychology. Paris will try next for a master’s degree in counseling at Harvard University. WENDY PIERRO/Acorn Newspapers Daniel Paris was once an angry, self-destructive young man.

At the age of 15, Paris left Oak Park High School, his home and his family, but he soon wore out his welcome with friends. The teen made new friends with Los Angeles gang members and turned to booze, drugs and violence as a new way of life.

As the oldest of three brothers and about 20 cousins, Paris said he was looking for a “big brother connection.”

“I stopped going to school in my junior year,” Paris, now 23, said. “I was immature, disrespectful. I was drinking alcohol from sunrise to sunset.”

But Paris was able to turn his life around. Tomorrow he will board a plane to Boston to start graduate school at Harvard University after a stellar academic career at USC.

A long and winding road

The road to Harvard was anything but straight and narrow. Paris had been getting in trouble at school for years.

“They thought I was being disrespectful,” he said of his teachers and many adults. As it turns out, Paris has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and other learning disabilities.

Besides drinking alcohol, Paris said he used cocaine and “smoked weed 24/7/365.”

“I had some friends who were shot and killed, and another who was clubbed in the back of the head and bled out,” he said. “I had multiple friends who spent time in jail and a couple who overdosed (on drugs).”

It was at the funeral of the friend who was clubbed to death that Paris realized he had to make changes.

He wanted to return to Oak Park High School but was directed to Oak View High instead. Oak View is an alternative school for students who, for whatever reason, don’t function well in a typical school setting.

Within a year, Paris made up the class units he’d missed in his junior year, completed all senior graduation requirements and graduated on time in 2005.

Paris said he received tremendous support from Oak View High School teachers and especially from Millie Andress, Oak View’s former principal who died in 2006.

“She was the kind of strict, leadership role that I needed at that point in time,” Paris said of Andress. “She didn’t let anything slide by. For any little reason, she had me up in that office, getting on me for every little thing—which is what I needed at the time.”

Paris also thought about his grandfather during his time at Oak View. “My grandfather was my biggest influence,” he said. “He was diagnosed with cancer in his early 60s and died when I was 15. I know he would have wanted me to graduate from high school.”

A high school diploma didn’t instantly change Paris’ outlook on life. He worked at minimum-wage jobs for a year and continued to hang out with gangs. “I realized how much work it was to support myself,” he said. “I endangered my life every day.”

Eventually he spent a year at Moorpark College, followed by a stint at Santa Rosa Junior College in Oakland.

“I lost all connections with friends, family,” Paris said of that time. “I was on a sober mission. I lost 45 pounds. I had no money or support to get drugs. I reevaluated everything.”

After community college, Paris was accepted at California State University Northridge but waited to hear if USC would accept him as a transfer student.

Once accepted at USC, Paris tried to return to his former gang friends, kids he had been willing to “die for” the year before, he said.

“The treated me like a completely different person,” he said. “They weren’t there for me. The only person who was going to be there for the rest of my life was me.”

Paris’s first semester at USC was tough. He hadn’t started medication for ADHD, and he failed the first test in each class during the first semester. After he sought help at the college’s disabilities center, Paris’ life turned around.

“I met with teachers. I got support,” he said. Over the next three years, Paris earned straight A’s.

Paris made the dean’s list every semester, was accepted in the school’s honors psychology program, completed two senior theses and won more than $100,000 in college scholarships.

He was anonymously nominated for various leadership and honor societies and was eventually chosen to be included on the university’s Wall of Scholars.

Paris was featured in the college newsletter and on the college website video to show other students that they can make mistakes and still turn their lives around.

He worked two jobs while attending USC, one as a gang interventionist and the other at the research center for crime and social control. The program was the first federally funded gang prevention program through the Los Angeles mayor’s office.

When it was time to apply for grad school, Paris said it didn’t matter where he went. The field of psychology offers many options— cognitive, developmental, social, clinical, neuroscience and others—and all the paths allow students to narrow their field of interest.

When Paris received the news that he was accepted at Harvard University, he decided on his focus— counseling. The counseling psychology program at Harvard will allow Paris to continue to work with students but on a broader basis.

“My parents didn’t quite believe me when I told them what I was doing,” Paris said. “I made their lives pretty miserable for four or five years.”

In addition to taking 18 units per semester at Harvard, Paris has two jobs lined up to help pay for expenses.

Paris has been a featured guest speaker at Oak View High’s graduation for two years running.

“ I believe strongly about remembering where you came from,” Paris said. “Everything you go through makes you who you are. A lot of what I heard at Oak View is what motivated me to work so hard at USC.”