PURSUING A DREAM
By Amanda Medress, Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Making Waves: Photo Credit Mercedes Thomas
CAP presentation - Josh Egle
14th Waver Crystal remembers when she first
dreamed of becoming a pediatrician. “When I
was younger, I had a lot of younger cousins who
played and got hurt. It was my
responsibility to make sure they
were okay, and if they got hurt,
I would usually pretend I was
the doctor. I would get hydrogen
peroxide and clean their bruises
and put the antibiotic ointment
and band-aids on,” she says. “It
comes from my mom being a
certified nursing assistant—she
used to bring me when I didn’t
have school and I would shadow
her.”
Crystal, a graduate of Making
Waves Academy and current CAP student, has
followed this dream. A sophomore at CSU San
Francisco, Crystal is majoring in child adolescent
development. Outside of school, she volunteers
at Highland Hospital in the maternal health
department.
As a commuter student, Crystal must carefully
manage her time. “Being a commuter student affects
18 MARKETPLACECONTRACOSTA.COM AUGUST 2019
me a lot. This semester I have 8 am classes, which
means I need to wake up by 5 am to be on BART
by 6 am. Knowing I need to wake up early and how
much homework I have, I need to
stay on top of it and plan everything,”
she says.
Maintaining her schedule is both her
favorite part and the most difficult
part of being a college student.
“There are times where I forget
oh, I have a test on this day or an
assignment due the next week. That’s
hard, but that’s one of the parts that
helps me become an independent
adult because I’m in charge of when I
do things,” she says.
Her experience at Making Waves Academy helped
prepare her for the rigors of pre-med education.
“Making Waves Academy had a heavier course load,
and that really prepared me for college. There are
people who went to Richmond High who struggled
with the amount of work they were getting in
college. To me, it was just a little more work than
MWA would give me. I was very prepared for the
course load,” she says. Now in CAP, her college
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