Ģ����ý

Lorena Rojas Reyes �26 settles into a table at Joe Coffee on the Ģ����ý campus, laptop open and notes spread beside an assignment. It a quiet study moment that now feels routine, but the space still carries memory. 

In the early 2000s, Joe was called the Bear Lair, and Rojas Reyes worked behind the counter serving students just like the ones she now sits beside. She remembers watching them come and go, moving through a life she was, at the time, only observing from the other side of the counter. 

�It was hard to work in a school and not be able to go to school,� she said. �I remember thinking, �Someday I�m going to be on the other side of this counter.�� 

That �someday� began to take shape years later. After returning to education through Catawba Valley Community College, then Gaston College � where she trained as a medical assistant � Rojas Reyes found her way back to Ģ����ý. 

�That how the circle finally closed for me,� she said. �I had worked here, dreamed about it, and then I became a student at Ģ����ý.� 

Now on the eve of finishing her Bachelor of Science in public health, Rojas Reyes has found a field that connects her lived experience with her academic and professional goals, particularly in serving Hispanic communities and expanding access to health education. 

�My grandma was the biggest influence in my life,� she said. �She always said that people who have a better life are teachers or doctors, and she really instilled in me the importance of getting an education and becoming something.� 

Following her grandmother wisdom, Rojas Reyes began college after growing up just south of Mexico City. However, life shifted course. Rojas Reyes married, moved to the United States and spent years raising three children while working to support her family. College, for a time, had to wait. 

�I still wanted to complete my degree,� she said. �But at that point in my life, it just wasn�t possible � I had to work, raise my children and focus on survival first.� 

That focus on providing for her children led her back to school for a more lucrative and stable career as a medical assistant. As the children got older, Rojas Reyes reflected on her clinical experience and decided she could have a greater impact at the systemic level � public health was the natural next step. 

�I care deeply about people, and I want to inform and educate them. Public health gives me a way to reach communities that often don�t have access to that kind of information,� she said. �I already understood what it meant to live in a multicultural community from my own life. Now I have the language to turn experience into something I can use to help others.� 

Outside the classroom, Rojas Reyes has continued building hands-on experience in healthcare. While studying at Ģ����ý, she has worked part time with the Children Advocacy and Protection Center (CAPC) in Conover, where she supports both clinical and administrative needs. After she graduates, she will move into a full-time position with the agency. 

�The work we do is sometimes difficult emotionally,� she said. �But it also confirms this is where I�m supposed to be.� 

As she prepares to continue her education through the Master of Public Health at Ģ����ý, she returns to advice she received when she was considering going back to school. 

�A friend told me, �Next year you�re going to be 50. You can be 50 without a degree or you can be 50 with a master degree,�� she recalled. �Time is going to pass, but you can decide what you build while it happening. It important to feel your purpose and do something that makes you happy � talk to people you love and absorb positive energy. Body and mind and emotions and health are all related.�