This hard-working father, police cadet and top student was honored by the governor before his graduation.
As a young boy, Jaime Jaquez ’13 lived in a family that struggled to make ends meet.
“I know how it feels to never see your parents because they are always working to barely make enough to feed you,” Jaquez says.
He started trying to help his family at just 12 years old, working weekends at a supermarket where he learned the value of earning his own money. “Forty dollars then was like having a million now,” he says.
Jaquez worked throughout high school, but, like most teenagers, he gave little emphasis to academics and instead focused on fitting in and being “cool” in school.
All his priorities solidified, though, when his daughter Amber was born in November of his freshman year of college.
“That was a wake-up call for me,” Jaquez says. “I stopped worrying about my social status and started focusing on how I would provide the life I never had for my daughter.”
Knowing that education is the key to breaking out of poverty, Jaquez says he would “stop at nothing” to obtain it. “That pretty much sums up my entire motivation for doing well in school,” he says. “I always had the potential. I just needed to grow and mature to realize what was important in my life.”
His hard work and motivation paid off.
Just a few weeks before Jaquez accepted his bachelor’s degree in May, the 20-year-old was honored by Gov. Deval Patrick as one of the 29 Who Shine.
In its third year, the 29 Who Shine program recognizes one student from each public institution of higher education in Massachusetts who embodies academic achievement, student leadership and community involvement.
After completing his bachelor of science in criminal justice in only five semesters with a grade point average of 3.98 while working full time as a cadet for the Springfield Police Department, Jaquez clearly did shine.
He is modest about the achievement.
While Jaquez attended college and worked full time, his daughter was raised by her mother in New York, and Jaquez visited whenever he could. This is the reason why he put his education on speed dial. “I took six or seven classes every semester and two or three classes during each summer in order to finish my bachelor’s degree in two and a half years,” he says.
Jaquez finished his course work in December 2012 and married Yanill on Jan. 17. On May 17, he accepted his diploma at the graduation ceremony at the MassMutual center in Springfield.
Jaquez and his family live in Chicopee. He hopes to one day be a state trooper, and he is also considering getting a law degree. He plans to return to Westfield State this fall to begin work on a master’s degree in criminal justice.
