Top 10 Spotlight: Aaron Salazar’s College Honor

by Ronnie Zamora/LFCISD

High school dual enrollment programs offer students the opportunity to earn college credits at the same time they work to earn their diplomas.

Some students can complete 46 semester credit hours of core curriculum classes and earn a college certificate. Aaron Salazar is one of them.

The Los Fresnos High School senior, one of the top 10 graduates of the Class of 2017, did that just that through the Dual Enrollment program with Texas State Technical College in Harlingen.

He completed the Academic Core block at TSTC and even attended the graduation ceremony April 28. He also walked across the stage in regalia.

“The teachers here prepare us so well that we are ready for the final exams from TSTC,” said Aaron, who started taking Dual Enrollment classes as a sophomore.

The Texas Core Curriculum is a core package of transferable academic courses defined by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that will transfer to any college or university in the state of Texas.

He will begin his collegiate career in the Engineering Honors program at Texas A&M University in the fall and will have college credit before starting his first class. He hopes to get into a master’s degree program after completing his bachelor’s degree.

“My interests are more into electrical engineering, solar panels, renewable energy, solar cars, wind farms …  things like that,” Aaron said. “Greenhouse gasses bring down the environment. Solar powered cars are the future. We have to stop using gas cars. Fossil fuels are not the way to go. More wind farms are good for our future.”

Aaron also has a unique skill of solving Rubik’s Cube in one minute or less. “Most people who don’t know me think I’m nerdy because I like Rubik’s Cube. I taught myself how to solve it about a year ago. It took a couple of days. Now I can solve it in less than one minute.”

Aaron, who has been a Boston Red Sox fan since first grade, also played baseball competitively for about 10 years. He played on the Falcon JV Dark team through his sophomore year.

“I enjoyed the opportunity to play, but I hung up my gear to focus on my grades. It was hard to do baseball and keep up my grades at the same time. I had to give one up.”

His studies and class ranking gave him the opportunity to present a Bell Award to someone who impacted his life at the district’s Employee Awards Banquet. Aaron chose to honor his mother Sandra Salazar, a teacher at Palmer-Laakso Elementary.

“My mom is such a hard-working person. She rarely gets public recognition. I kept it a surprise from her. She told me that she never thought that the person who gave it to me would be my son.”

Aaron’s advice for younger students to do well academically: “Be mature in middle school. High school is where you start preparing yourself for life. You need to have a plan and start thinking about it now. You have to be ready.”