STEAM senior finds achievement inside and outside of school

Ashley Guzman is one of Mount Vernon STEAM Academy’s highest-achieving seniors and has displayed extreme hard work and dedication to her education. Over the past four years, Ashley has polished herself into a well-rounded and highly achieved scholar by maintaining a high GPA, participating in activities, and pushing herself to be the greatest she can be. 

Her zeal for pursuing academic success has resulted in her earning a cumulative grade point average of 96.14. She currently takes five Advanced Placement (AP) courses in Biology, Psychology, Government and Politics, Literature and Calculus. She loves history and literature, writing poetry, and reading Shakespeare in her class. 

She is a poet herself, having one of her pieces in the process of being published – titled “Butterfly.” This poem is about the life cycle of a butterfly paralleled to her life as an immigrant, growing in her education, and spreading her wings. In her life, she faced some struggles for being different but, over time, learned how to express herself and be brave. 

“My greatest academic moment was when I was learning in middle school and achieved becoming valedictorian,” said Ashley “My mom gave up her life for me to come to this country and believed in me. She always reminded me how smart I am.”

Ashley is a very involved individual. She is a member of the National Honor Society, Drama Club, and the Iona University Medical Summer Program, where she was editor-in-chief of a student-led newspaper. She is also mentored by Physician Beverly Chang as a part of Judge Judy’s Her Honor Mentoring program. This program matches female students to mentors and allows them to interact with many professionals through programs and field trips. 

As a volunteer for the Denson Admissions group, she helped assist in setting up a college acceptance Gala and looks forward to being celebrated this year. This organization helps students get into their dream schools by offering SAT/ACT prep, advice and college tours. 

In college, Ashely plans to triple major, as she believes in seizing every opportunity given to her. Right now, she is sure that she wants to explore the fields of biology and computer science to move further toward her goals. She dreams of becoming an obstetrician and gynecologist or pharmaceutical scientist. Her goal is to combat medical discrimination and sexism and to develop methods to help illnesses that typically harm females. She is also inspired by STEAM’s forensics class to venture into digital forensics. 

“I’m a great believer that you only live once so we need to do as much as we can,” said Ashley. “You can't limit yourself to one career. I want to do a few things”

Among many schools, Ashley has applied to John Hopkins University, Georgetown University, Iona University, Stony Brook University and Dartmouth College. She has already received acceptances from Tuskegee University in Alabama and SUNY Brockport in New York. When describing her senior year, she uses the words nervewracking and suspenseful, but she also shows beaming excitement for the future and what it will bring.