The Answer - A blog about Education, Preparation, and Commitment.

Alumni Spotlight:  Lucia (Serna) Vasquez, YES Prep Class of 2001

December 01, 2011 by Tenesha Villanueva

Lucia (Serna) Vasquez graduated from YES Prep in 2001 (our first-ever graduating class!).  She has been a proud member of the United States Air Force for 7 years where she works in Public Health/Deployment Medicine and is stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. 

Lucia on her experience at YES Prep…

What is your favorite YES Prep memory?

I have two:

Sophomore Spring Trip - The bus ride to New York City.  We convinced the teachers to play a mixed CD one of the guys brought along.  They kept flipping through the songs for an “appropriate” one and finally left it on “Wanna Be a Baller”.  The whole bus was singing along – including our bus driver!

Sophomore Christmas Program – Mr. Barbic got El Mercado Del Sol to let us use their empty atrium to have our Christmas Program.  A few hours before the program and hours after hard work to get the place clean, the fire marshal came by to tell us we couldn’t use the space because it wasn’t up to code.  We had like two hours to get the plaza clean and move everything moved to the plaza.  The program started on time and everyone had a good time.  It was the moment I realized that even though everyone didn’t get along, that we were all part of the YES family.  I had never seen so many people come together to make something happen.

Name the teacher/staff member who had the greatest impact on you and why.

I can’t pick just one!! But if I HAVE to pick just ONE – I would have to say Mr. Chris Barbic.  I met him in 7^thgrade when the school was still called Project YES.  He went out of his way to make sure I had a good education after Project YES.  He took me to Rice University one Saturday to take the test for The Chinquapin School.  I attended Chinquapin for 8^thand most of 9^thgrade, but the travel was hard on my mother who didn’t have a vehicle at the time so I had to drop out.  Mr. Barbic paid my mother a visit as soon as he found out that I had dropped out of Chinquapin and told her that he was opening up a charter school.  He asked my mother and I to sign a commitment letter and made me promise that I would get a college degree.  And well – the rest is history. I enjoyed 3 awesome years at YES College Prep (the school's first name) and was privileged to be part of the first ever graduating class.  Mr. Barbic always had that “whatever it takes” attitude with me. What sticks out most in my mind was when my mother couldn’t afford a graphing calculator for my Calculus class and I wanted to drop out of school because I felt it was too much burden on my family. Mr. Barbic pulled me into his office and gave me a graphing calculator and told me that I could pay him back whenever I could – even if it was after I graduated college!  I paid him back that year, but it definitely made me see that money is poor excuse not to fulfill your potential.  Where there is a will – there is ALWAYS a way.

Honorable mention goes to Mr. Keith Desrosiers who taught me to love math and Mrs. Jennifer (Pagani) Hines who gave me an appreciation for books.

Do you feel YES Prep best ensured you were ready for life beyond high school?

Absolutely! YES Prep took me out of Houston and let me see that there is a bigger world out there.  It taught me that there are no boundaries for success.

Knowing what you know now, what one piece of advice would you give to current YES Prep students?

Stick it out! School, including college, can be overwhelming, but in the span of your life 8 years is nothing so stick it out.  Also, don’t let people tell you that you can’t do certain things.  I know this one sounds silly, but my first year of college I went in determined to come out an engineer, but after walking into the engineering building for the first time I quickly realized that I was one of the only females in that hallway.  Some of my family members told me to pick an easier path. I eventually caved and switched my major to Liberal Arts because I didn’t know what else to do (no offense to Liberal Art majors).  It took me 6 years and 3 major changes to make my way back to engineering.

Lucia on her experience in college and the military…

Why did you decide to join the military?

I took a very different path. I gave up an awesome scholarship at DePaul University and got married instead.  I don’t regret the path I took because it taught me so much; however, if I could do it all over again, I would have gone to school instead.  I enrolled in the Honors College at the University of Houston with the intention of being an engineer, but the military had other plans and I had to leave school to PCS to California after two semesters.  I spent the next 2 years hopping from school to school trying to decide what I wanted to do on top of make a living.  In 2004, I started working in the mortgage industry and started my own mobile notary business.  I was working 80+ hours a week and while the money was good, I put off the spring and summer semester.  I told myself I would start school in the fall, but when registration came and went, I realized that I had to pick one.  It was either going to be a career or school.  I knew I had to find something that would allow me to work steady hours and make school affordable.   Plus, I needed time to figure out what I really wanted to do because I was tired of going to school without a game plan.  On October 25^th2004, I arrived at Lackland Air Force Base determined to get my life on track. 

List the places you’ve been stationed and have traveled to since joining the military? 

I was lucky to put my skills to use during Hurricane Katrina.  I spent 2 months in Biloxi, Mississippi in support of a humanitarian mission right after Hurricane Katrina.  The place looked like an absolute war zone when I got there. There were no basic necessities and I got to put my Public Health skills to use doing food salvage, water safety, entomology surveillance and disease prevention.

I also deployed to Joint Base Balad, Iraq.  Iraq gave me a deeper appreciation for the little things in life like good shampoo and soft toilet paper…LOL. But on a serious note, it made me see that the things we complain about here at home aren’t so bad in the bigger picture of things.

Other stops along the way have been Germany, Iceland and Hungry.

What do you consider to be the greatest benefits to being in the military? Describe the greatest challenges you’ve faced?

Greatest benefit – doing what I love and proudly serving my country.

Biggest Challenge – Being away from my husband who is in the Army.  He has been stationed in Killeen, TX since December 2009 and is currently deployed to Afghanistan.  It’s hard to plan anything including school because your duty always comes first.  I’ve had to break for school for basic training, technical school, deployments, TDY’s and work schedule.  I’ve also had to change my major from Civil Engineering to Environmental Studies because I can only go to school in the evening/online. 

I am proud to announce that after 10 years, I’ll be finishing school in a couple months!!

Tell us about your job.  What skills have you gained as a result of your job or experience in the military?

Public Health is broken down into 5 elements: Communicable Disease, Food Safety, Occupational Health, Deployment Medicine, and Medical Standards.  Our main focus is to educate in order to prevent disease.  A skill I’ve gained is the ability to connect the dots and see the bigger picture.  An epidemiology investigation is the prime example where you have to look outside the box to be able to connect the dots.  I jokingly say that you have to be part detective to do this job.  We did an STD epidemiology chart once and we were able to prove that 1 person infected 32 other people.

List the key qualities or characteristics have helped you achieve success in the military? 

Patience, flexibility and above all perseverance.

What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishment (career, social, extracurricular, personal) since graduation from YES Prep? 

I won Non-Commissioned Officer of the Quarter for my group which consists of about 350 people.  I am currently competing for Public Health Technician of the Year at the Air Force level.

Describe your life now.  What are your hobbies outside of work (if any)?  What are your plans after you leave or retire from the military?

Life is pretty hectic – I work anywhere between 40-60 hours a week depending on the mission, workout 5 times a week for about 1-2 hours, go to school and volunteer at the VFW Post 76.  My husband is currently deployed so I also take care of all the house stuff (e.g. caring for our 5 pets, cutting the grass, etc).  Life is good :D

I am currently applying for a Masters program at UTSA and when I am done with that I am determined to finish my Civil Engineering degree. After my military career, I hope to marry my Environmental Studies and Civil Engineering degree and start my own green remodeling business.  I want to focus my business on teaching your average person to use environmentally friendly products that will make their homes self sustainable – e.g. gray water systems and solar panels.  Furthermore, I want to work in some disaster preparedness into it somehow, but I’m still tweaking with it

--
0 Comments
Be the first to leave a comment