At the age of 17, senior Andrea Salazar pushes herself to participate in as many activities and extracurriculars in high school as she can. Salazar is currently president of the National Spanish Honors Society, co-executive producer for the Bulldog News Network, the secretary of Key Club, and the vice president of the 2024 Class Council. Outside of school clubs, Salazar was captain of the swim team and plays varsity on the girl’s water polo team. Salazar also takes on two jobs as a nail technician and swimming instructor at WCUSD Aquatics Center.
While always having a packed schedule, Salazar has maintained a 4.6 GPA throughout her high school career. Salazar took on numerous Advanced Placement (AP) classes, and passed every one of the AP exams she took. She claims having her transcript filled with all A’s is what she is most proud of.
Not only does Salazar work hard for herself, she makes tremendous efforts to make her family proud. She expressed that her biggest inspiration has been her parents. Salazar’s family and herself were born in Mexico and knowing her parent’s story encourages her to keep working hard. Salazar admires the way her parents have been able to balance giving her and her siblings a family filled with love, while also working many hours. As a future first generation college student, Salazar expects highly of herself.
“…She spends her time working so, so hard, learning the language, learning the ways that like she can grow in all of her job positions. So, watching her do that inspires me to go on and like do the same thing. Work really hard, work to get better, get better positions, help others,” said Salazar, when explaining how her mother’s role inspires her own work ethic.
She admits her high school journey has not been easy and her consistent hard work was followed with mental struggles. Especially going into the end of first semester, maintaining many responsibilities during the busiest times of the school year has proved itself exhausting.
“I feel like there’s just no break, there’s no time for me to just like, do what I need to do and every single second of my day is packed. At first it’s addicting and it’s fun, and I feel accomplished. But after a while, it’s too much that I just can’t handle it,” said Salazar.
Despite it being taxing on her health, work has become Salazar’s addiction. She succeeds in her activities by limiting time with her friends and herself and not getting ideal sleep. Minimal sleep is the biggest challenge that she faces because she’s so involved. Regardless of the copious workload, Salazar loves being able to look back at her hard work with pride.
“Even when it got difficult, I was just really proud of all the things I was able to take on and do. And you know, being able to show it off to others like all the hard work that I’ve put on, and take on, it’s all worth it in the end,” said Salazar.
Salazar’s favorite way of taking a break from her academic and work responsibilities is expressing her love through nail art. Salazar has created a small business as a nail technician and utilizes her friends to practice her skill at a small price. With wanting to learn about business during her college life as well, Salazar’s dream career is to be a full or part time nail technician, turning what makes her happiest into a career.
“I absolutely love doing nails, it’s like the most awesome creative thing you can do… Doing nails is something I’m going to keep doing forever, even if I get something different. I know I’m going to keep it as a little side hustle no matter what,” said Salazar.
As of now, Salazar’s advice for herself is to have a moment of peace with herself and enjoy the rest of her senior year.
Yvette Vanderburg • Nov 29, 2023 at 7:59 am
Great job, Violet! This is a very meaningful story. I bet Andrea was proud of the way you highlighted her strong work ethic. Bravo!