Senior year is an opportunity to showcase your accomplishments from all four years of highschool, and AVID students. Laura Pineda has taken that opportunity and ran with it by succeeding in winning scholarships and receiving college acceptance.

Every AVID senior is currently enrolled to begin some sort of formal education after high school, including community colleges, as well as four year universities. 

“We spent all four years on this. Freshman year we build the skills and study habits; sophomore year we have a focus on character, your grit and determination; junior year is test prep and college research; then senior year I help them with the application process for college, and the scholarship process,” AVID teacher Karen Kawasaki-Williams said.

To honor the accomplishments of students in AVID, there is an AVID Award Ceremony on May 20th where students gave speeches,  received awards, and were highlighted for exceptional work in scholarship fields. 

Senior Laura Pineda Nicolas, for example, is the co-AVID senior president and the recipient of a $2,000 AVID scholarship for being a qualifier in a scholarship where the top AVID student from every high school is selected to compete. 

“I think the best part of being a president here is having a better connection with my AVID teachers and being able to have a really open space to help my AVID peers,” Pineda said. Though there is often some added pressure, “Having to keep up with setting a good example when I’m also struggling with many other things such as senioritis, other club responsibilities such as MECHA, and just life in general,” she explained.

Three juniors: Justin Arias, Aaron Avila Lopez, and Carlos Soriano were spotlighted as finalists in the Lamp of Learning scholarship, one of the most competitive junior level scholarships in the country. As finalists, they will be guaranteed a $2,000 scholarship, as well as the opportunity to interview for an additional $10,000 dollar scholarship as seniors.

“I had to make a ton of revisions with different people to make my essay as good as possible so that I would move on to the semi-finalist round,” Lopez said. “Then, to move on to be a finalist, I had to write another essay and then do the interview. And this was during school, so I had to work on the essays and practice for the interview while doing my homework and sports. So I had to be very dedicated.”