Aspiring reporter learns a hard lesson in the rules of journalism

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EL PASO ­– Ever since I can remember I have always wanted to be a writer. When I was in high school I was a student who constantly got into trouble for various things, and once an angry teacher asked me what I was going to do with my life. I thought he wanted to open up and talk and I answered him that I wanted to be a writer. He laughed at me and stated: “The way you’re headed, I wouldn’t be surprised if I see you asking for money in the streets and living under a bridge.”

Those words always stuck to me, that is until I enrolled in college. I never finished high school and began working, eventually got married and had a daughter.

With my youngest daughter at a field trip. (Photo courtesy of Francis Regalado)

My college degree is in sight despite all the obstacles

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EL PASO – Ever since high school, I was categorized as one of the students who could never get a college degree, but now I am only months away from earning my diploma at the University of Texas at El Paso, part of the first generation in my family to graduate from college. In high school they had two kinds of plans, the advanced and the general plan. The advanced plan was for those students identified as college material and the general plan was for those students tagged only as high school graduates. My first D in geometry prompted the counselors to switch me to the general plan. Although they said I could still attend college, they pulled me out of geometry and put me in consumer math, which was an interesting class but not a class I feel I really needed.

Mom and daughter graduate together into a new awareness

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EL PASO – Ambar Calvillo told her mother over dinner she was madly in love with another woman. Although Irma Calvillo was shocked, she accepted her daughter to the fullest and then had to suffer through strong criticism from her family for that acceptance. “Nobody is going to tell me how to raise them,” she said. Irma, 46, majoring in human resources and Ambar, 22, majoring in public relations will graduate together with BA degrees in May from the University of Texas at El Paso. “College has given me that confidence I never had, and I think I have become more humble and open to this generation now than before” said Irma.

Overwhelming at First, College Life Makes You Grow Up

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EL PASO, Texas — I had a revelation today as I left the office of my advisor earlier this morning. I was walking out scrambling through my degree plan, which he had given me, when it all sank in. I will be done with school for good and finally have my college degree! This was surreal to me, as cliché as it sounds. It seems like just yesterday I was filling out my application and waiting for the acceptance letter from UTEP.  Soon, I will be exposed to the real world, exposed to life.