Avalon High graduate, Giselle Alvarez, was among a group of college graduates who were recognized by the Angels Baseball Foundation in a pregame event prior to the Angels and Rangers game on Monday at Anaheim Stadium.
Alvarez was one of 25 college graduates who were awarded scholarships from the ABF. She recently graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a double major in political science and economics and a minor in psychology. Also at the event were 26 new scholarship awardees who are just beginning their collegiate education.
Alvarez and the other college graduates also stayed for the game where they watched from a group of suites at the field. It was one last celebratory night for this year’s group of Angels Baseball scholarship winners. And for Alvarez, it was a nice break from an already busy schedule and more goals to pursue.
Alvarez said that completing a double major was challenging, especially since her first year was spent fighting home sickness and missing her island friends and family. She said is was a struggle at times, but hard work was nothing new to a Catalina Island resident.
“I think one of the things the Avalon teaches you is to be an incredibly hard worker,” Alvarez said.
In her second year, she moved to a new residence that was close to the ocean, and she said that seemed to calm her a little. Once she got comfortable, she said the college experience at Santa Barbara was amazing. She found a group of friends and met people from different parts of the country and the coastal college felt familiar.
“Yeah, it’s so similar to home,” she said.
With her political science and economics degree, she has already found work with an area nurses union. She works with their messaging for external campaigns and member reports in both english and spanish. Ultimately, she hopes to parlay her work experience into further education, with the goal of earning a law degree.
“I really want to utilize it to my advantage and hopefully gain the skills to explore law, that’s what I essentially want to do is become a lawyer, specifically an immigration attorney,” Alvarez said.
She said she wants to help people who may not always know how to protect themselves from being taken advantage of, or exploited.
She again noted that her experiences growing up on Catalina shaped much of her desire to help others. She said that watching hard working people on Catalina, often working long days, or two jobs, usually to make others happy, has given her the desire to work hard too. And maybe help others along the way.
“I think it’s just inspiring that they take on so much and do so much for the island, and I just really want to embrace that,” Alvarez said.
But on Monday, she went back to enjoying the Angel game. A game which the Angels won, with a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth. It wasn’t flashy, but they had to work for it.
