I graduated from Cathedral in 2006, third of my class. I was the Captain of the Debate team, the President of the National Honor Society, and a member of the Spanish Honor Society. I also performed in several of the school plays throughout my Junior and Senior year.

Like many other students at Cathedral, I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother understood that my best chance at success would come from a good education. Given its excellent academic reputation, she decided I would go to Cathedral. The cost of tuition was a sacrifice for my family, but this investment helped me get to where I am now.

After Cathedral, I attended Princeton University and graduated in 2010 with a degree in Psychology and Neuroscience. Afterwards, I was awarded the Simons Fellowship in Computational Neuroscience, which allowed me to conduct autism research at the Yale Child Study Center in the Yale School of Medicine and the Marcus Autism Center at Emory University. I am currently a doctoral candidate at Princeton University in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. I am funded through a grant awarded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The academic skills fostered at Cathedral enabled me to successfully continue my path in higher education.

I miss many things about Cathedral. The debate team in particular was completely transformative for me. I am deeply in debt to Dan Flores, who was the debate coach at the time. He was, in retrospect, my first real academic advisor and his lessons still guide me to this day. My favorite memories of high school were amongst the debate team, competing (and winning) at tournaments, as well as mentally sparring with each other as we developed our own cases.

“What are you proudest of?”
I am most proud of being the first person in my immediate family to graduate from college. I’m also proud of being the first person in my entire family to pursue a doctorate degree. To put this into perspective, in 2010, only 3.4% of all the Bachelor’s degrees conferred to U.S. residents were given to Hispanic males. For Doctor’s degrees (Ph.D., M.D., J.D., etc), it is only 2.6%. These numbers are appallingly low, and should be a personal challenge to each and every student at Cathedral. These numbers can only rise with your determination and hard work. (Data from the National Center for Education Statistics)

“What lesson from Cathedral do you carry with you?”
When I first joined the debate team, the new members received a brief explanation of the rules of debate and were then immediately sent into practice matches against the upperclassmen. Going against the more experienced juniors and seniors was a very rude awakening. This crash-course in debate taught me to think quickly on my feet and to face challenges head on when they present themselves.

“Do you have a message (lesson/observation) for a current Cathedral student?”
Cathedral prepares its students to be leaders in their community. I recently heard a great quote from astrophysicist and science communicator, Neil deGrasse Tyson about the responsibilities of being a leader.

“Of course, in a free society you can and should think whatever you want… if you want to think the world is flat, go right ahead. But if you think the world is flat and have influence over others… thenbeing wrong becomes being harmful to the health, the wealth, and the security of our citizenry.”

As a leader, know that you hold influence over others. It is your responsibility to avoid being wrong as best you can. This does not mean you are magically obliged to know everything, but rather you have the capacity to say, “I don’t know.” But never equate “I don’t know” with “I will never know.” Have the tenacity to learn as much as you can and understand it as best as you can. From my experience, the best quality of a leader is the humility to stay silent and listen to others, seek outside counsel, and consider all facts before acting. If you lead, that is your responsibility.