Danica Fong does not talk about success the way many high-achieving students do. She doesn’t lead with grades or accolades. She starts with something most people try to avoid.

Failure.

“I realized how much I love the process of engineering, not necessarily engineering itself,” she says. “The process of failing, really.”

For Danica, failure isn’t the opposite of success. It’s the pathway through which success has to travel. That philosophy—discovered through Forreston’s engineering pathway—has shaped not only her academic ambitions but how she thinks about learning and possibility.

Now a senior preparing to graduate, Danica is headed to the University of Illinois to study engineering. She’s the first in her family to attend U of I—both parents went to Northern Illinois—and the acceptance, after months of anxious waiting, brought a wave of relief. “I was really stressed about the application process,” she admits. “But I was very stoked about that.”

Through the university’s engineering undeclared program, she’ll spend her first few semesters sampling disciplines—most likely mechanical or aerospace—before choosing a direction. But the discipline itself is almost secondary to something deeper.

When she first entered Forreston’s engineering courses, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. At one point, she thought she might pursue medicine. It wasn’t until she began tackling projects—and watching them fail—that something clicked.

“I wasn’t necessarily good at the projects,” she says, “but the process of failing and revising myself and coming to a conclusion where I can learn from my mistakes—I just really love that.”

Each iteration offered something new. Over time, those lessons extended far beyond engineering. Math, once frustrating during her early high school years, became something she could approach differently.

“It was just because I didn’t know how to study,” she says. “It wasn’t because I was smart or not smart.” Once she applied the same discipline and persistence from engineering, everything changed.

An only child, Danica points to one person above all when asked who shaped her thinking. “My dad,” she says without hesitation.

“He wouldn’t say get an A because it’s an A,” she recalls. “He’d say get an A because it’s the journey and it matters how you do something rather than the result.”

As a younger student, that idea felt abstract. But through engineering projects and long hours of problem-solving, she came to understand exactly what he meant. The process matters more than the outcome.

Still, the biggest challenge she faced wasn’t academic. It was personal.

“Women are underrepresented in STEM as a whole and especially in engineering,” she explains. As she advanced into more specialized classes, the imbalance became harder to ignore. She even hesitated to take certain courses. “It’s more about, can I overcome this—my self-esteem for women in engineering?”

Rather than stepping back, Danica leaned forward. “I would like to be a pioneer for women, help them to not be discouraged”,  she says. “Something like that should not stop you from doing what you love. It should never be condemned because of your gender or your race or whatever.”

Her perspective reflects something engineers understand well: diverse viewpoints lead to better solutions. “Having a mix of those would definitely have a more well-concluded statement,” she says.

Forreston provided the environment to discover all of this. With a graduating class of fewer than fifty, the school offers something larger institutions struggle to replicate. “That established, trusted connection goes a long way,” she says.

Those connections have shaped her across many parts of school life. Danica has been in band since sixth grade and has been playing piano since she was eight. She plays marching snare in the drumline and serves as section leader for concert band. She participates in Scholastic Bowl and Art Club, and she sees music reinforcing the same lessons engineering taught her.

“You’re not going to get your fingers on the keys aligned every single time the first time,” she says. “It takes hours of self-discipline to actually get that song to sound the way you want it to sound.”

Even her senior capstone project reflects that mindset. Working on a team of three, she is helping design a prototype filtration system for disposing of acrylic paint—preventing harmful chemicals from entering drains or the environment.

Ten years from now, she hopes to be contributing to the field while encouraging younger students—especially young women—to pursue STEM with confidence. The famous thinkers and pioneers she once looked up to, especially women, helped spark her curiosity. Now she wants to pass that along.

Because in Danica Fong’s view, the real breakthrough isn’t avoiding mistakes. It’s learning how to use them.