Head of the class: Worcester valedictorians share their diverse stories of success

WORCESTER — Four were born and raised in Worcester, and two came here as immigrants. Their passions range from music, to travel, to technology. They are different in many ways, but each has accomplished the same goal: becoming the valedictorian of their high school.

And in just a few months, a new journey will begin for them as they move into their dorms and make their chosen colleges their new homes for the next few years.

Each of the valedictorians shared some insight into their time in the public school district and what lies ahead of them.

Four have chosen to stay in Massachusetts, while three others have chosen to attend college in other states.

The valedictorian at Claremont Academy is Amy Le, who will be attending Worcester Polytechnic Institute this fall to study computer science. She was awarded the Great Mind scholarship from the university.

Le declined to be interviewed for the story.

Alijandro Mendoza - Worcester Technical High School

When Alijandro Mendoza took the stage to give his speech at Worcester Technical High School’s graduation last week, he treated the moment more as a confession.

The valedictorian, who was born in Worcester and raised in the Greendale neighborhood by immigrant parents from the Philippines, told his classmates that he felt a lot of pressure and anxiety about his education and career plans.

He plans to study physics or astrophysics at Columbia University this fall, he said, but it took a big leap of faith to get to that point.

During his time at Worcester Tech, Mendoza developed an interest in technology and STEM topics, and enrolled in the biotech trade. The plan had been to pursue a career in medicine after spending his first three years in the trade.

He spent those years conducting research in the field and working multiple internships, including one at UMass Chan Medical School. But the more time he spent, the more he realized it wasn’t a good fit.

“Because of the opportunities and because of the résumé and abilities I was able to build at Worcester Tech, I was still able to explore other things like physics,” Mendoza said. “I tried out physics and a different program, and that was my switch, and that was my decision.”

He developed an interest in particle physics and cosmology, and decided to choose that as his major. He isn't sure at the moment what will come after Columbia, but is interested in research and academia and would like to pursue his Ph.D.

He said he chose Columbia partly because of its location in New York City, which will provide him access to many companies and research opportunities.

“Diversity was really important for me, and Columbia has a large international student body, and kids from around the country,” Mendoza said. “There's a lot of intellectual diversity as well.”

It was not an easy decision, he said, but an important one, especially for his mental health. And he encouraged the members of his graduating class to prioritize their mental health as well and make their own leaps of faith, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.

He did not want to be confined to something that wasn’t fulfilling, and he told his classmates they shouldn’t either, and that it was important for them to break the mold and take the time to explore new things.

“It's gonna get more complicated, so you may as well do it with a smile,” he said.

Lauren Popinchalk - Burncoat High School

Lauren Popinchalk worked hard to become valedictorian this year, but she said it’s not something that defines her or her fellow graduates.

“All the people in my class should not be put down because they aren't valedictorian or salutatorian or have a designated rank in class, because it doesn't really define you,” Popinchalk said.

Popinchalk, who was born and raised in Worcester and has spent the majority of her life involved in music, will study computer engineering in the honors program at UMass-Amherst this fall.

She still plans to be involved with music and play the French horn, the thing that drew her from Worcester Arts Magnet to Burncoat, known for its reputable fine arts and music programs, but it will become more of a hobby instead.

Like many others, during the pandemic Popinchalk learned a bit more about herself and her interests, and found that she had a deep interest in technology and computer hardware. She built computers and keyboards to pass the time in quarantine.

She hopes that interest will eventually become her career after she graduates from UMass.

But while Popinchalk has developed a passion for tech, that wasn't a focus of her graduation speech.

Instead, she wanted to celebrate the achievements of her classmates over the course of their four years at Burncoat, remind them that it was the beginning of the rest of their lives, that they have much more to accomplish in the future.

“It was important to celebrate, rather than reminisce on the difficult parts of high school,” she said.

Luca Frost - South High Community School

Luca Frost may be staying close to home for college, having chosen to attend the College of the Holy Cross in the fall. But he chose a major, international relations, that will help take him around the world.

Born and raised in Worcester, Frost said he developed a love of traveling and learning new languages from his parents, who are professors at Holy Cross.

His father teaches Spanish and his mother teaches Italian. Throughout his life they took him to countries in Europe and South America, including Italy and Colombia, which increased his understanding of the world.

“I'm pretty much trilingual and that's something that I really hold close to me,” Frost said. “What I've been able to learn in like a few weeks overseas has just changed my life so much.”

It helped him grow closer with his former classmates at South High Community School, where he found a diverse student body.

“When I come back to school in America, I'm able to see lessons in my school about other parts of the world and even understand the perspectives of students from different backgrounds to mine,” Frost said. “Because I've seen those backgrounds in their natural setting.”

It is something he kept in mind when writing his speech. He went around to his fellow graduates, asking them how they say “welcome” in their native languages.

By the time he finished making his rounds, he was able to find 15 different ways to say it in his speech last week.

“I really like seeing so much diversity and it’s really changed my life and changed the lives of a lot of my peers,” he said.

Now, Frost said, he gets to take what has, thus far, been a passion and turn it into a career.

Despite having two parents who teach at Holy Cross, it was not Frost’s first choice.

He was looking at attending Georgetown University, because he liked its linguistics program and wanted to be near the global opportunities a school in the nation’s capital would have presented.

But ultimately, he said, Holy Cross made the most financial sense and will allow him to stay close to his family and community. He adds that it is a “very good school” and he’s very happy to go there.

He envisions attending graduate school after Holy Cross. He has an interest in diplomacy and points to the United Nations as a potential future dream employer.

Nellie Rushton - Doherty Memorial High School

Born in Worcester and raised near the Worcester State University campus, Doherty Memorial High School valedictorian Nellie Rushton is shaking things up and taking a risk for college.

Despite coming from multiple generations of Worcesterites, Rushton decided to attend Stanford University in California, where she will study symbolic systems, a major that she said combines computer science, psychology, philosophy and linguistics.

“I wanted to challenge myself and see, because I have grown up in Worcester my whole life and I haven't ventured too far from here,” Rushton said. “I wanted to sort of experiment and see what I can learn from a different coast.”

But even though she is traveling to the opposite coast for college, she said she made it clear in her college housing application how important her native city is to her.

“They’re going to expect lots of good stories about my home,” she said.

It’s not just the people and city itself she appreciates, she said, but the opportunities she and other students had access to while in school.

As a high school student, Rushton got accepted to the Women's Research and Mentorship Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The program pairs a handful of high school and undergraduate students with a graduate student to help them with their research.

It was in this program that Rushton, through the help of her mentor, found her interest in education technology.

“She showed me the intersection of psychology and computer science,” Rushton said. “Her work in early childhood and STEM education and sort of building it from the ground up was really inspiring to me.”

And while Rushton wouldn’t mind continuing exploring education technology as a career, she also plans to take courses in different topics while at Stanford to explore other fields. She also wants to work toward making computer science and STEM more equitable.

While the next four years of her life will be spent in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley, Rushton plans to eventually come back to Worcester.

“Being able to say I’m from the ‘Heart of the Commonwealth’ is something that's really important to me,” Rushton said. “It's hard to not be inspired by all the other people around you in Worcester.”

Phong Nguyen - University Park Campus School

Since moving to the United States from central Vietnam as a child, Phong Nguyen has grown from a shy person into a leader of his community.

When he first arrived with his family at age 10, Nguyen said he spoke very little English, instead having to depend on others to translate for him, which made it difficult to communicate and socialize.

“I had been learning English in Vietnam as part of the curriculum there for years,” Nguyen said. “But I was not really good at it because I thought I would just speak Vietnamese for the rest of my life.”

When his family moved to the United States, in part to ensure that he and his siblings had access to public school education, he found he had to put in a lot of work, both in and outside of school, to learn the language.

That hard work paid off. He eventually took Advanced Placement classes in English and other subjects, and dual enrollment courses at Quinsigamond Community College. He was also able to get into programs focusing on STEM topics and to participate in cross-country and the environmental club.

As his mastery of the language improved, so did his social life, Nguyen said. That transformation, as well as the people and faculty who helped him get there, was a focus of his graduation speech.

Nguyen said he also became more active in environmental science, helped raise funds for flood relief in Bangladesh, and got involved in research that focused on biodegradable packaging.

His interest in environmental science came from living in Vietnam, where he regularly saw floods devastate people’s lives. He will major in that subject at the University of Pennsylvania while minoring in international relations.

“Sometimes we would stand on top of the roof, waiting for a boat to get to help us because everything was underwater, and sometimes the house would get destroyed,” Nguyen said. “When I learned about a climate change protest in my freshman year, I got really excited and interested in becoming a climate activist, and I want to use my experiences to bring policy and attention to this issue.”

Nguyen said he chose Penn partly because of its programs that help support first-generation students from low-income backgrounds transition into college.

Nguyen is nervous about being away from his family for the first time, he said, but also excited for the new change.

“Life is going to be very different from what I’m used to,” he said.

Yuliana Sanchez Reyes - North High School

Yuliana Sanchez Reyes says that when moved to Massachusetts from the Dominican Republic as a child, she didn’t know there were languages other than Spanish.

The family first moved to Boston before settling into Worcester. The language barrier proved to be as difficult for her as the change in climate.

But through the help of her family, particularly her father, as well as teachers in her schools who spoke both Spanish and English, she was able to catch up.

“My father always kept me on track with everything … we would sit up every night and study,” she said.

Education was important to her family, and her paternal grandmother encouraged her parents to move to the United States so they could have “a better future.”

The youngest of several siblings, Sanchez Reyes said that she could potentially be the first to finish college in her family.

This fall, she will enroll at the College of the Holy Cross, where she’ll study biology and minor in Spanish. She hopes to become an orthodontist, similar to her aunt, who used to work on her teeth.

“In the Dominican Republic, she's a dentist, and I used to shadow her when I used to go for vacations,” she said. “She loves what she's doing and she explained it very in-depth with me.”

When Sanchez Reyes spoke at graduation last week, she talked about a friend who died, and whose voice had been silenced.

She encouraged her fellow graduates to make sure their voices are never silenced, to always speak up and be heard. In speaking about her friend, she was able to make sure his voice ended up being heard.

“I just didn't want to talk about myself, because obviously school was easy for me, but that's not how it was for everybody else,” Sanchez Reyes said. “I just wanted them to know they were heard and recognized.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Who were the valedictorians of Worcester high schools in 2023