When New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed Senate Bill 140, the Opportunity Scholarship Act, on campus last Friday, a number of recipients were present to express their appreciation for the support and one student spoke on behalf of all current and future recipients of the New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship. Below is her story.
Grant County native Raquel Parga is finishing up a forest-wildlife degree at Western New Mexico University while raising her two-year-old son. “I’ve overcome some obstacles in my life but I’m still going strong with my degree,” she said.
Before receiving the Opportunity Scholarship this past fall, she had taken out loans each semester. “I was always short about $600,” she said. “On top of worrying about how I’m doing in my classes, there was stress over how to afford each class.”
Parga proactively set aside what she earned at her on-campus job in preparation for paying off student loans after graduation. “When I found out about the Opportunity Scholarship, it was kind of a happy moment because I had more support for school. I didn’t have such a financial burden,” she said. “Thank you for making the journey of a college student a little bit easier.”
She said, while some chose to put off college while they raise a family, earning her degree is a priority for her now. “Education will take you a long, long way. I want to show my son and my youngest sisters in the family that it will pay off in the end.”
She hopes to change the way people see the environment and play a role in conserving and managing natural resources. “It’s important to have that diversity of education inside of a community. For a mining community, you can go into environmental science or the medical field,” she said, noting that her grandfather was a truck driver for the local mines.
Parga hopes to work with the U.S. Forest Service after graduation and, in preparation, conducted eco-monitoring for Heart of the Gila as part of her senior practicum last summer. Being in the field — testing the waters for PH levels, dissolved oxygen, dissolved solids and more — has opened her eyes to how much of the hands-on and classroom work she does at WNMU applies in the real world.