90 Local Professionals Visit Lowell High
Skills Pay Bills: Lowell Students Glimpse Future Possibilities During Career Speaker Week!
Dr. Maria Vejar-Mason and Diego Leonardo pose with a class of Lowell High juniors and seniors at the end of their speaking presentation. Photo by Project LEARN
Published in the Lowell Sun on April 16th, 2024
Original Version Published in the LPS NoteBook on March 14th, 2024
LOWELL — Diane Soem had an important message to share with Ms. Mirabella’s 11th grade English class when she signed up for Lowell High School’s Career Speaker Week: “The career path you take does not limit what you can do.”
The daughter of Lao immigrants who settled in Utah, Soem came to Massachusetts to earn her bachelor’s degree in science and nursing from UMass Lowell. She later went on to earn a master’s degree in anesthesia from Boston College.
Today, Soem is a certified registered nurse anesthesiologist and owner of Bliss and Balance Med Spa in Nashua, N.H. She credits her parents’ experience for pushing her to work hard and build a better future.
“I’m trying to build generational wealth so my kids and their kids will be well off,” she told the students, many of whom also hail from newcomer families and can relate to Soem’s pursuit themselves.
Soem is one of nearly 90 local professionals who volunteered their time last month to participate in Lowell High’s Career Speaker Week, an annual event run by local nonprofit organization Project LEARN in partnership with Lowell High.
It takes a village to bring so many professionals into Lowell classrooms.
“Our community partnerships are instrumental in creating experiences that allow students to visualize their life outside of high school. This year, we were able to place dozens of local professionals in 79 classrooms and reach over 1,800 Lowell High students,” said Project LEARN Senior Director of Programs, Strategy & Marketing Mira Bookman.
The speakers’ careers and experiences covered a wide range of industries, from health care and engineering to politics and marine biology.
Lowell High College and Career Counselor Dianne McCarthy explained that for many Lowell students, Career Speaker Week allows them a glimpse into “careers they didn’t even know were an option.”
“This exposure helps them to broaden their minds and realize they have so many opportunities for future success as they plan for life after high school,” said McCarthy.
Like Soem, many of the speakers came to share the lessons they’ve learned through their own lived experiences, and the decisions they made to help them navigate all of it.
As a Lowell High senior, Assistant City Manager Yovani Baez-Rose didn’t exactly know what she wanted to do with her future.
An average student, she was encouraged by her guidance counselor to go to college, but to be realistic about where, so she made a list of her college priorities: a small, close-knit campus and a tuition that wouldn’t break the bank.
This led her to the University of Maine at Farmington.
“It met all of the things I was interested in as a student,” she said. “I liked the freedom of being in college, the ability to choose classes and when I wanted to take them, and the relationships you build with professors.”
Baez-Rose knew she needed to apply herself as a student at UMaine. While she may have never made the honor roll at Lowell High, she was always on the dean’s list in college.
While many speakers admit they didn’t know exactly what kind of career field their future had in store for them, others knew exactly what they wanted to do — like WBZ News Radio’s Matt Shearer.
Shearer, an Acton native, said he wanted to go into radio from the time he was 14, hosting and producing “Skate Talk” on his high school radio station with his classmates.
“I’ve been laser focused since that point, but I want to stress that that is not normal — to come up with what you want to do with your life at 14,” Shearer said. “I got lucky to find something I was so passionate about, but it doesn’t hurt to start thinking about it early.”
For many young people, finding a niche is important when deciding on their path for the future, but speakers like Aaron Goulet don’t want them to forget that “it’s skills that pay the bills.”
Goulet was a student athlete at Greater Lawrence Technical School where he studied automotive technology. After graduating in 2016, he felt lost and uninspired, unsure what he wanted to do next.
His dad encouraged him to go to nursing school like his mom, whose career kept the family going as they, like many others, were struggling financially during the 2008 recession.
Goulet recognized that college isn’t for everyone, but, “If you are going to college, go for something that will definitely have a job when you get out.”