{"id":49826,"date":"2024-12-11T16:20:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T21:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/?p=49826"},"modified":"2024-12-11T16:24:10","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T21:24:10","slug":"from-family-first-to-graduation-day-meet-acc-fall-2024-graduate-kallie-perezs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/2024\/12\/11\/from-family-first-to-graduation-day-meet-acc-fall-2024-graduate-kallie-perezs\/","title":{"rendered":"From Family First to Graduation Day: Meet ACC fall 2024 graduate Kallie Perez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Austin Community College District (ACC) celebrates more than 3,900 graduates at its <a href=\"https:\/\/www.austincc.edu\/students\/graduation\/commencement-graduation-ceremony\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fall 2024 commencement ceremony<\/a>. Friends and family are invited to congratulate students at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park on Thursday, December 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of those students is Kallie Perez, who is earning her degree in English. The 28-year-old began at ACC in 2014.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Hear more about her journey at ACC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Why did you choose ACC?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had gotten a full-ride scholarship to The University of Texas Permian Basin, but my grandma had gotten sick, and I couldn&#8217;t bear to leave her in case she got worse. My dad was against me going because he had worked in Odessa and didn&#8217;t like the oil field crowd. So, we compromised, and I looked into doing my basics\/getting my associate (degree) and transferring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How does it feel to be graduating?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It feels amazing. I\u2019m proud of all I\u2019ve done here and thankful for every experience. I\u2019m excited to see what\u2019s next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What was your favorite part of ACC?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My favorite part was the amount of great professors and people I met along my journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Any faculty or staff you want to recognize supporting you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vanessa Lazo was a huge part of my life for a few years as I was a Supplemental Instructor for her Spanish courses. She supported me and showed me kindness through the years. The Learning Lab staff has always been amazing and just so phenomenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What is next for you?&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am onto university! I was accepted into the English program at Texas Tech, and I&#8217;m currently writing a novel that I hope to publish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What would you tell someone considering applying for college?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;d tell them to keep going! No matter what life throws at you, education is so important. If you can just keep working at it, it&#8217;ll pay off and become something so beneficial to you and a rewarding success that you accomplished on your own and through the help of others.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Community College District (ACC) celebrates more than 3,900 graduates at its fall 2024 commencement ceremony. Friends and family are invited to congratulate students at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park on Thursday, December 12. One of those students is Kallie Perez, who is earning her degree in English. The 28-year-old began at ACC in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":49829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1013,1002,1001,486],"class_list":["post-49826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-english","tag-fall-2024-commencement","tag-fall-2024-graduation","tag-graduation","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.austincc.edu\/infohub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}