Sasha Johnson anticipates early entry to college.

Like a snipe in hockey – a quick score resulting from a sudden, precise shot, if you blink, you miss it. Having just turned 17, Sasha Johnson has completed high school ahead of a typical timeline. He heads to college in the fall.

Sasha has attended Texas Tech K-12 since fifth grade. 

Arne, Sasha’s dad, says his son has always excelled at whatever he set his mind to. Unfortunately, that created the concern that he and his wife, Olga, didn’t think Sasha was being challenged enough in their local school. 

“As a result, we explored the available options and chose Texas Tech K-12,” Arne explained. “That has been quite the journey as he has been with the program since fifth grade when it was basically correspondence, and we paid out of pocket for the tuition, to where it is now: TEA approved with a free-tuition plan and 100% online.”

Pursuing Passions

Texas Tech K-12 offered Sasha the ability to work at his own pace. He has been able to play hockey for the past 11 years, including travel hockey for six years and high school hockey for a few more. He had the opportunity to travel to several other states as well as Canada for tournaments, which was in itself a great learning experience, according to Arne.

“My favorite part of attending Texas Tech K-12 was having the freedom to lean into my passions,” Sasha said. “The biggest benefit was the flexibility of my schedule. I had the freedom to do schoolwork whenever I wanted, which was a massive advantage when engaging in time-consuming extracurriculars. It also made learning feel more natural because I was not constrained by the sound of a bell telling me to move to the next class.”

Being heavily influenced by his maternal grandparents who were both engineers – his grandfather specifically an electrical engineer – Sasha spent most of his time outside of school designing custom PCBs (printed circuit boards), building robots and lately creating engineering-related content for his own online brand. 

He produces short videos, mostly for YouTube, having acquired more than 4,000 subscribers and slightly over 2 million views. 

“His channel has been growing rapidly, and he is getting sponsorship opportunities from electronics manufacturers,” Arne said. “So, that may turn into an interesting venture depending on where he decides to go with it.”

Striving to Serve

His mom and his Texas Tech K-12 advisor, Taylor Fierro, focused on guiding him to check the right boxes when it came time to apply for colleges. 

Sasha participated in Texas Tech K-12’s student council, National Honor Society and the gifted/talented (GT) program. He was also involved in the National Society of High School Scholars and Young Men’s Service League, which emphasized volunteerism such as planning events for seniors in nursing homes and providing meals for people experiencing homelessness.

“The GT program allowed me to get hands-on experience building an autonomous robot, research the history of robotics and gain experience delivering a presentation about my research and project,” Sasha said, emphasizing the importance of the Texas Tech K-12 offering. “Overall, it was a great experience, and I would highly recommend it.” 

Fierro, who is also the school’s student council sponsor, said Sasha was always a dedicated student, consistently asking questions and wondering what he could do to help. 

“As a member of our student council, he contributed to our discussions, event planning and more,” she said, eager to applaud the young graduate. “He is an incredibly bright young man, and I’m very excited to see what he does in the future.”

Focusing on the Future

Sasha has a clear path to becoming an electrical engineer specializing in robotics. In his future, he sees himself creating a robotics company that will solve complex problems with autonomous systems.

“I want to design technology that will work alongside humans instead of replacing them,” he said determinedly.

And having the well-rounded resume was, in fact, beneficial, Arne said, as his son’s acceptance rate was very good for the universities he applied to. 

After weighing the benefits of each of the opportunities, he chose the University of Texas at Arlington as an electrical engineering major and member of its Honors College. 

Sasha looks forward to exploring various opportunities, whether it’s undergraduate robotics research labs or the Formula SAE racing team – a student design competition organized by SAE International (previously known as the Society of Automotive Engineers). He also received a scholarship.

Arne says as the Texas Tech K-12 part of Sasha’s journey comes to a close, the next phase is opening up. And, he adds – as a fatherly observation – as long as he maintains his strong work ethic, the future will only be limited by how much effort he puts into it.

Sasha nods.

“Texas Tech K-12 taught me that you get out of life exactly what you put into it,” Sasha replies confidently. “I have developed skills and self-reliance that will undoubtedly help me in college and in the future.”