Lucky are the people who find their zen in high school.
For Alana Oliveros, falling in love with SCUBA has not only put her on an exciting career path, it has helped her overcome the ravages of body dysmorphia and an eating disorder.
Today, the 19-year-old Alan B. Shepard High School graduate is a certified diver, swim instructor, lifeguard and rescue diver. She is working toward earning her yacht captain’s license. Just as important, she is seated confidently in the drivers’ seat of her own destiny, secure in her ambitions and body image.
Oliveros, who lives in Crestwood, recently helped District 218 instructors lead Shepard students through their Professional Association of Diving Instructors certification dive at Haigh Quarry in Kankakee. As an alum who has found her passion, she represents to high schoolers how striving to be the best version of yourself — as opposed to the best version of someone else — can be a pursuit filled with joy and meaning.
“So many opportunities have been opened for me because of SCUBA,” she said. “It’s something I never want to let go of.”
Though SCUBA is not necessarily the path for everyone, Oliveros said everyone can benefit by finding an activity or pursuit that brings out the best in them.
More Top Picks Clay Bars
In her early years at Shepard, Oliveros said, she struggled with the disconnect between the shape that her body was and the shape she thought it should be, based on pop culture.
“It was terrible. If you’re constantly bombarded with images on social media that are considered attractive and you don’t necessarily look that way,” she said, “you start to think there’s something wrong with you.
“But you don’t know if those pictures have been photoshopped. You don’t know if the person has just finished a workout and their muscles are pumped,” she said. “And you have to remember that Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are highlight reels. People only put out pictures in which they look their best.
“It’s not necessarily reality,” she said.
At the time, Oliveros said she was overweight and had a “victim’s mentality.”
Then, before her junior year, she spied SCUBA on the list of gym class options at the Palos Heights high school.
Though she wasn’t athletic, she was intrigued by the challenge of learning how to dive, of maybe one day operating a boat and working to protect the oceans.
The program’s 500-yard swim prerequisite, however, was intimidating, she said.
But Dylan Shaughnessy, Shepard physical education teacher, told her “there’s no time limit and no stroke requirement,” she recalled.
He said she could dog paddle if she wanted, and she could use the entire class period to finish.
She did both.
“Some of the other kids finished in about six minutes,” she said. “I was embarrassed, quite frankly. It took me 40. But I did it.”
And that has made all the difference.
After her junior year, Oliveros went with her family to Cancun, Mexico, where she was certified for open water diving.
During her senior year, she took advanced open water SCUBA and after graduation, traveled to her parents’ homeland in the Philippines for the first time by herself.
“My gap year was the most influential for me because I lived off an island of 4,000 people called Malapascua in the middle of the Philippines and I just dove every day for about six months. That’s how I got my instructor rating,” she said.
Off Malapascua, home of the Coral Triangle, she completed the PADI Rescue Diver, Divemaster and Open Water Scuba Instructor course with thresher shark divers.
During that time she switched to a vegan diet and, coupled with the daily swims, the excess weight just melted off, she said.
She also adopted a new outlook, that “life is not something that happens to you but something that happens for you,” she said.
“It’s you versus you, progress is a slow process,” she said. But if you remember that “you’re not competing. Self improvement is a journey that takes time. If you don’t take responsibility for your actions and take control of your life, you’re going to stay in the same rut and have the same problems. Life isn’t that hard. If you have a good attitude you can go for anything.”
When she returned home, she took a job at DJ’s Scuba Locker in Brookfield and then SCUBA Emporium in Orland Park, where she works now. She also boxes at Glenn Hudson Boxing Academy in Robbins. Changing her lifestyle, she said, has helped her drop 100 pounds.
She is currently enrolled at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills with plans to pursue a degree in marine biology at Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Cebu, Philippines.
And she has her sights set on captaining a 300-ton yacht that charters dive trips and serves vegan cuisine.
Finding her dream outside the lens of social media, she said, has helped her physically and emotionally.
Life, she said, is not all about likes and favorites and retweets. “It’s about intrinsic happiness and doing things that improve others’ lives as well as your own,” she said.
Shaughnessy said SCUBA is just one of many nontraditional, noncompetitive gym class options offered today in District 218 and at many other high schools.
“P.E. is becoming more adventurous. We’re adapting to the interests of the clientele coming in, and that’s not necessarily the typical ball sports,” he said. “We’re getting more into outdoor education, climbing walls, orienteering, bows and arrows. There’s a lot more to physical education than just playing basketball or kickball.”
While SCUBA can be stressful for people who are claustrophobic, many students find it to be a stress reliever, Shaugnessy said.
More Top Picks Best Smart Lock
“There’s no chirping in your ear, no text messages. It’s almost like meditation,” he said. “It has that effect on me.”
And, for people like Oliveros, it can become both a purpose and a passion.
“I think the sooner you can find a passion the better. But I know some adults still struggle with that even in their 40s and 50s,” Shaugnessy said.
Oliveros said, “I love the adventure and the lifestyle (SCUBA) brings.”
A career in diving, she said, would allow her to sail around the world, exploring and advocating for the environment while experiencing it.