Regina Garcia-Fuentes is the most dedicated East High senior you’ll ever meet. She is a varsity swimmer, tennis player, the Vice President of Latinos in Action, and a member of Science Bound, plus she participates in many other programs. Garcia-Fuentes is a manager at one of two jobs, where she displays her most diligent qualities.
Garcia-Fuentes has more to her than what you see at school. Not only does she get stuff done for herself during the day, but she also gets stuff done for her siblings too, like getting them to school before coming to East. She wakes up in the early morning and goes to bed late at night, all while working hard during the day juggling school and work. As of this year Garcia-Fuentes has also maintained mostly As and Bs, and a 3.3 unweighted, 3.5 weighted GPA.
“I usually go to bed between midnight or 2:00 a.m. depending on when I get home from work, and I wake up 6:30 to 7:00 a.m., get my siblings ready, take them to school, go to Central first period, and then have a couple periods free. I take a couple classes, and then I either go to Al Exito, which is another program I’m a co leader of, or go to work,” Garcia-Fuentes said.
Second semester of her sophomore year, she got a job at McDonald’s and that summer she was offered a position as a manager. She got a job in February of this year at Molly’s Cupcakes through a friend. It’s no doubt that she has gained many leadership opportunities as a result of these jobs, but she also faced some challenges while starting out. Theng in a working environment as a teen and a manager over people who are older than her was hard, but it had forced her to take a step outside her comfort zone and show people why she deserved everything she had worked for.
“Although it can be very draining and tiring balancing school, work, and having a social life, I think overall, they’ve helped me step out of my comfort zone. I think it definitely pushed me to be more outgoing and kind of take a more leader role then waiting for somebody else to take action,” Garcia-Fuentes said.
Most of the programs she participates in or holds leadership positions in, including Science Bound and AL Exito have paved a way for her future and have assured her support in whatever she wants to do in life. This also includes being selected to attend Prep Academy in the seventh grade, which prepared her to take a more professional view of life and gain more opportunities like summer internships, opening more doors for herself, and not having to wait till the last minute for them to be available to her.
“Because Regina has worked so hard in high school, she will do fantastic in college at Iowa State University and she will lead a very successful life due to her perseverance, grit, positive attitude, her work ethic and her ‘can do’ spirit,” Coach Erinesa Lowe said.
After high school, Regina plans on attending ISU to double major in agricultural business and business analytics through the Science Bound program. She chose this path because she did a summer program at DLL, and it shined a light on the agricultural side of the business world for her.
“It was pretty fun because I’m able to connect back with my roots since both of my grandparents in Mexico used to be farmers, and one of them still is. So, it’s kind of fun seeing how I can put bringing my culture and my family into my future,” Regina said.
Before graduating from East there is one last thing that she would like to accomplish, making a name for herself. One thing Garica-Fuentes would have liked to have done differently in high school was to take an easier approach. But at the end of the day, she knew her hard work had paid off.
“Even though it’s hard, definitely try going out for those opportunities and don’t just go to class and sit there in silence, just try to get more while you’re here,” Garcia-Fuentes said.