EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)\u2014Just days away from Silva Magnet High School\u2019s graduation ceremony, senior Josefina Cortez is eager to embark on the next chapter of her life.<\/p>\n
At a young age, she realized she wanted to study medicine. She said her grandmother being diabetic and facing other health challenges fueled her passion.<\/p>\n
Josefina is one of six children, and she\u2019ll be the first in her family to graduate from high school and go to college.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, she earned her associate\u2019s degree from El Paso Community College. At Silva Magnet, she was involved in multiple school clubs and extracurricular activities.<\/p>\n
During her downtime, she helps her sister raise money for her cheerleading team by baking and selling banana bread. She said the extra money goes a long way.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mom being a single mom, it helps pay for my sister’s cheer expenses sometimes, even with home necessities. You know, my mom’s a little bit short. We use that money, and it’s definitely very helpful.”<\/p>\n
Health Sciences and Technology teacher Edna Ramirez said Josefina has grit that sets her apart from other students.<\/p>\n
“I see that she puts her mind to something, and there’s nothing that will stop her from achieving it. There’s, like, that grit to go for it and achieve what she’s looking for,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n
Josefina applied for the highly competitive UTEP Terry Scholarship. She said she almost didn\u2019t apply, but her friends insisted. The moment she learned she had earned the scholarship was a special one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just burst out into tears, you know, with my friends. And it was such a wholesome moment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Ramirez said the exciting moment happened during her class. She was<\/p>\n
\u201cCrying with her. We were so happy because I know she’s like, you know, just screamed at the top of her lungs. And I turned around, and I was like, what’s going on? And she’s like, I got it. And I immediately knew that it was that. So we, I know the entire class was emotional. We were just so happy for her,\u201d Ramirez said.<\/p>\n
Josefina said she is proud to be a first-generation college student. She wants to continue on this path to inspire all of her siblings, her mother, and her grandmother!<\/p>\n
She said she\u2019ll be studying science and nursing at UTEP next fall. She dreams of becoming a pediatric oncology nurse.<\/p>\n
Congratulations, Josefina!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA)\u2014Just days away from Silva Magnet High School\u2019s graduation ceremony, senior Josefina Cortez is eager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-313906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}