Students with an alternative plan

After high school some students plan to go to college, but Amberly Espindola, 12, plans to go into the Marines once she graduates. Her older brother was in the Marine Corps, which is why she plans on going as well.

Leslie Ruiz, Business Team

As graduation approaches seniors Alan Ruiz, Matthew Ramirez, and Amberly Espindola plan on taking an alternate route from college to join the Armed Forces.

 

Senior Alan Ruiz plans on joining the Air Force when high school is over.

 

“College really isn’t for me and I wouldn’t want my parents to deal with the burden of my college expenses,” Ruiz said.

 

Ruiz plans on having a more adventurous life style while on his road to the Air Force.

 

Like Ruiz, senior Matthew Ramirez plans on joining the Air Force as well. He plans on

taking the AFOQT, the Air Officer Qualifying Test. This test, similar to the SAT and

ACT for this field, is a three hour-long exam that tests the enrollees on everything from

math to english to aviation skills. Depending on their results, they are placed in different

sections of the Air Force.

 

“I want to join so I can learn new skills and apply them to my everyday life when I get back,” Ramirez said.

Another senior, Amberly Espindola, doesn’t see college in her future. Instead, Espindola plans to accomplish her dream of joining the Marine Corps.

 

“I’ve always felt that the military would be a great place for me simply because I am a hands on person,” Espindola said. “I never thought about college while I was growing up, but I always thought about boot camp and what it’d be like.”

 

Even though she leaves to South Dakota for boot camp only a week after graduation, she is excited to become a Marine and belong to the “few and the proud.”

 

 

For students with alternative plans after high school, their futures are just as important to them as those who will attend college in the fall, and, although it will be a more physically rigorous path, they are determined to make this their career.