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Akira Matos of Haverhill will be the featured student speaker for the 62nd annual commencement exercises at Northern Essex Community College.
Matos says she was not a good student in grade school and bounced around to a few local schools as a result. When it came time for high school, her mom pushed for her to go to Whittier Regional Vocational Technical High School, even though she might not have had all her facts straight.
“My mom tricked me,” Matos says. “She told me they had a pool! So I told the admissions people how excited I was for swim team, and they told me they didn’t have one.”
Even though, Matos enrolled at Whittier and decided to specialize in metal fabrication. She did well in classes, winning second place in her district in the Skills USA competition. She was still struggling in some of her academic classes when she decided to try a different approach. In the fall of her junior year, she took English as an Early College class at Northern Essex and discovered the different pace and expectations suited her. She ended up with a B+ in the class.
“It was difficult but also a bit more relaxed. I expected to do a lot of writing, and I did. It was good for me. I felt like I could work more at my own pace.”
By the time she graduated from high school, Matos had earned 18 college credits through Early College classes and was selected to speak at the Early College recognition ceremony.
Through all of this, she still wasn’t sure college was in her future. She explains her parents weren’t pushing her to go, either. Her father grew up in Cuba, where college wasn’t a possibility and, therefore, not a priority in his life. Her mother was eager for Matos to have the financial security of a career in welding right out of high school.
“Up until I graduated from high school, I was insisting I wasn’t going to go to college. I didn’t think I could do it or afford it,” Matos says. However, Whittier’s Early College coordinator changed her mind by explaining she could continue at Northern Essex for free under the Promise Program, which covers the costs of tuition, fees and supplies for Early College students who qualify.
Having witnessed changes in her own eyesight due to her time welding, saying,” seriously, everyone in my specialty graduated with the same prescription,” Matos decided she wanted to become an ophthalmologist and enrolled as a biology major.
Matos also found a lot of support by joining the Pathways to Academic and Career Excellence program, known as PACE for short. It provided various services for first-generation and low-income students.
Matos plans to continue her education at UMass Lowell, where she’s already taking a class. She will transfer as a junior and will be weighing her options for medical school.
Matos was nominated for student speaker by Emily Yunes, 5th Year and Promise Program Coordinator, Kevin Mitchell, Chemistry Professor and Kristen Arnold, Director of the PACE Program.
Commencement takes place Saturday, May 18, at 11 a.m., on the Haverhill Campus, 100 Elliott St.