But Jazmin Hernandez, one of the top 10 students in the Los Fresnos High School Class of 2017, she combines that with her love for playing the guitar for the LFHS Mariachi.
Jazmin, the daughter Jose Luis and Hortencia Hernandez, remembered when the LFHS Mariachi visited Liberty Memorial Middle School when she was in seventh grade. She was fascinated by the composition of the music.
“I told myself, ‘man I want to do that.’ ”
She joined the Mariachi during her sophomore year, and is now part of the Mariachi Halcón Dorado, the intermediate of the three mariachi groups at LFHS.
“I grew to like the classical guitar,” Jazmin said. “I even bought my own so that I can practice at home. Playing guitar is more of a hobby than anything else.”
While guitar as a sidebar, her focus is maintaining good grades and being self-driven academically.
“When I was in elementary school, I got my first ‘A’ honor roll, and it felt good,” Jazmin said. “From there, it was wanting to get good grades for myself. Now I’ve set the expectation that I should get good grades.”
Her motivation was keeping her focus on academics, and pushing herself to do her best.
“I was first interested in becoming a landscape architect,” she said. “I spent some time in an environmental engineering class, and that drove me. I changed my mind to that career path. I can do a lot of things with a college engineering degree.”
Jazmin hopes to start college with basic courses at South Texas College in McAllen because “they have an program where I can get to an associate degree in environmental engineering.”
After STC, she hopes to transfer to Texas A&M University-Kingsville or the University of Texas at Austin.
Jazmin also enjoys writing and reading. She is a member of the Calculator Applications team that advanced to the UIL Academics regional meet in San Antonio April 7-9.
She is also president of the Los Fresnos Writers’ Guild, where writers of all interests gather.
Her advice to younger students to excel academically: “Your grades do matter. Don’t slack off. Just because you have some free time, you should study in between. It will come back at you during your junior and senior years. Getting into a good college and doing well on the ACT really is important comes down to how well you do in school.”
