Today’s Class: May 17, 2019
Today’s class featured Raymond Perez, a soon to be Syracuse University 2020 graduate,
a 2016 Hope High School graduate, and 2015 Hope Life Skills student who returned to the Life Skills class today to share with students his interesting perspective on making the most of your ‘life after Hope’ opportunities.
Our Life Skills host today was Darwin Morales
who welcomed Raymond back to Hope High and introduced him to his Life Skills classmates.
Darwin (right) introduces Raymond Perez to his Life Skills classmates to start today’s class. Great job, Darwin!
Kevin Castenada welcomes Raymond back to Hope High after Darwin’s introduction. A good indication how effective Kevin’s greeting was is the look on Raymond’s face. Good job, Kevin. Ms Nuri looks on proudly.
“Raise your expectations of your students, Mr Cronin and Ms Nuri. Please. Demand more! I was not prepared for college.
The amount of reading, the quality of writing my professors expected of me and my ability to manage the significant amount of unscheduled time I had each day were challenges which almost caused me to leave Syracuse and waste the full scholarship they had invested in me” Raymond said to the class today. “My college performance was initially disappointing. I failed two classes first semester, freshman year. But I persevered and soon figured out how to successfully manage my time and force myself to read more and write better to meet the expectations of my professors“.
Raymond shares his amazing story of perseverance – the value of his personal brand which helped build his network of successful, good people who have and continue to support and create opportunities for his success. Raymond is now a very successful student at Syracuse. Raymond pushed out of his comfort zone to run for student government at Syracuse with a student body of more than 20,000 undergraduate students. He has had valuable summer internships. He has also volunteered for campus activities like being one of the student managers of the Syracuse University women’s basketball team.
David Navarez (right) digs into his pocket to retrieve his business card to exchange with Raymond during the networking portion of today’s class.
Robert Desilets networks with Raymond at the end of today’s class as other students look to do the same.