Not all students are given the same opportunities; it is up to students to make the best of what they have. For the class of 2024’s salutatorian Alejandra Fernández, that is exactly what she did.
Unlike many of her classmates, Fernandez did not start at Malden High School until her sophomore year after emigrating from her home country of Venezuela. With not all credits transferring over, she eventually was placed in a mix of freshman and sophomore classes to catch up on credits. However, this did not stop Fernandez from rising to the top of her class.
Junior Helen Xie met Fernandez during her freshman year, having a common history class. After watching her grow over three years, Xie confidently described Fernández as “a very driven person and my role model.” Seeing her classmate as an “inspiration”, Xie believes that wherever Fernandez goes, she will succeed: “She’s motivated, she’s smart, and she’s doing great. Everyone is so proud of her,” Xie concluded.
Fernández is “one of the most well-rounded people” at Malden High, according to senior and classmate Jessica Li. Li has grown close to Fernández in the past year and has watched as Fernández joined “countless clubs and AP classes.” Between being a leader in Speech and Debate, National Honors Society (NHS), and Science NHS, as well as pushing through six AP classes in her senior year alone, Fernández can be found in almost every corner of the school.
This is what Fernández has struggled with the most over the last three years, however. “I felt like I should be able to tackle everything but what I really needed to do was practice time management and prioritizing when I needed to,” Fernández detailed.
“I had to learn how to do things way before the deadline,” Fernández added. Procrastination is something that almost everyone struggles with at some point, not just high school students. To work through this, Fernández likes to keep a “to-do list to help keep track of all of my assignments,” although she admits she can forget to do something now and then.
After she graduates, Fernández is moving to downtown Cambridge to continue her education at Harvard University, double majoring in Electrical Engineering and Economics. What ultimately made her decision, to commit to Harvard, was passion: “Choose a career that you like and believe you can succeed in, and you will make it so much easier for yourself.”
Colleges tend to see majors chosen in trends, with Engineering being one of the highest chosen majors across the last five years ranking at number 4 in 2023 alone, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the past year, 128,332 students have graduated with a degree in Engineering in the US, at 6.3% of all degrees.
While Fernández loves the topic, she is also interested in Economics and finance and does not want to find herself doing something just because everyone else is. “Don’t just try following the patterns of society, make your own decisions,” Fernández expressed.
Junior Susila Wong has watched over the past two years as Fernandez has carved her own path. After meeting in AP Seminar in the 2022-23 school year, the two have grown close and bonded over their love of math and science. Wong explained that while Fernández has always been smart, “I’ve watched her grow into herself and become even more intelligent.” With that, Wong believes that Fernández has become more “confident in herself” as she discovered what she is and is not passionate about. “When she’s interested in something, she knows every little detail about it,” she continued.
Outside of Economics and Electrical Engineering, Fernández is also passionate about her home country of Venezuela. Over the past few years, Fernández has started and organized a non-profit organization called Sending Hope, with a mission of “helping communities improve their education, nutrition, and healthcare,” according to their official Instagram page, @sendinghope_. Through this organization, she has organized fundraisers and donations to help students in her hometown of Maracaibo, Venezuela.
“Choose a career that you like and believe you can succeed in, and you will make it so much easier for yourself.” – Alejandra Fernández
Her work to help her country does not stop there, either. Over the past school year, Fernández dedicated her AP Research topic to focus on sustainable energy. After extensive research, time, and dedication, she wrote and published a 5,000-word research paper and presented a 15-minute presentation on her research and how it can be implemented to help communities.
Her work, entitled Renewable Energy Systems: Developing a Photovoltaic Wind Hybrid Power Plant in Maracaibo, Venezuela, used data from other towns, sustainable energy research, and her own implementation of statistics from Maracaibo to determine the most successful and sustainable source of energy for the town. “I developed a hurricane shelter in Puerto Rico during my junior year, and went even more in-depth for AP Research.”
Growing up, Fernández’s hometown was at risk, due a number of long term power outages. Because of this, “I’m very passionate about helping especially vulnerable communities transition to clean energy,” she professed. She hopes to one day use her skills to help the world transition into using clean energy sources.
