Hard work, family the secret to valedictorian’s success
Rosa Saldana and her family are living proof that you can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.
After coming to the United States from Peru as a young child, Saldana not only graduated from North Fort Myers High School on Sunday, she walked the aisle as the class valedictorian.
For Saldana, it was her ability to embrace challenge that helped her succeed.
“It took a lot of work and I took a lot of challenging classes. It’s really rewarding to know that all the classes earned me that spot,” Saldana said, whose weighted GPA was 6.36.
It wasn’t an easy journey. Rosa was born near Lima. She and her family moved to America when she was 4.
The family first lived in Westin, in Broward County, and moved to Cape Coral when Rosa reached seventh grade, where Rosa enrolled in Trafalgar Middle School in its gifted program.
Rosa’s mother, Marcela Guimoye, came to America with nothing, but worked hard, learned the language, went to school and became a success, which her children noticed and used as an inspiration.
Guimoye said even from an early age, they knew they had a daughter who was something special.
“She would have conversations with people you don’t hear from a 7-year-old. She would talk about finances and question why people do things,” Guimoye said. “The teachers at school would tell me how intelligent she was and she was always at the top of the class.”
Once at North, Saldana enrolled in the Cambridge University AICE Program, allowing her to earn college credit at the high school level. She then took dual enrollment and advanced placement classes after 10th grade and built her grade-point average from there.
Saldana also served the community, which is a heavy component in the awarding of scholarships. She volunteered at Cape Coral Hospital for two years and at a doctor’s office in a cardiology clinic, doing data entry, as well as doing recycling.
Saldana took part in many clubs, including the Rho Kappa Social Studies Honor Society, Spanish Club International, Science Club, and even tried athletics, playing one season on the girls tennis team and another in cross country before a knee injury ended that.
Saldana called her time on the tennis team among the most rewarding of her high school career.
“It had an impact on me because when I first joined it everyone took me in even though I wasn’t really good at it,” Saldana said. “It’s different from other sports because it allowed me to be part of a team and showed you can do whatever you want.”
Saldana will attend the University of Florida and major in bioengineering, at least at first, to see if she likes it. Otherwise, she will switch to biology.
She said she wants to learn to work with prosthetic limbs and perhaps build a career in that or creating solutions for cancer.
“The field of bioengineering is so vast I’m not sure what company I would work for. It includes things like stem-cell research and curing cancer,” Saldana said.
And if by chance Rosa doesn’t have the motivation to study that day, she looks at her mother, who is attending college at the University of Central Florida and about to complete her bachelor’s degree in business management.
Guimoye and the family have all the reason in the world to be proud of her.
“She’s very intelligent, so passionate about biology. She’s just a hard worker, very dedicated,” Guimoye said. “Coming from a third-world country and having all these barriers, coming around like she did, she’s my hero.”