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Destina Cervantes

1,555

Bold Points

4x

Nominee

1x

Finalist

1x

Winner

Bio

Hi, I'm Destina! I'm not entirely sure what I want to be. My original plan was to be an accountant and gain enough experience to then be a personal financial advisor. Life changes a lot though, so now I am unsure. I know for a fact that my career will be somewhere in the Business field, but I don't know what exactly yet. Which can be troublesome, but not really. I think it is okay to not know, because it is a very important decision to make. I need real life experience to be able to help other people more, but I do believe I have my foot in the door of understanding finances. I have competed in the Personal Finance categories at DECA and earned 1st place twice. My parents also put me on a joint account with their credit card, so I could build my credit. As soon as I turned 16, I got my own job and paid for my own cell phone bill, gym membership, car insurance, and anything else I wanted. I have learned to manage my money to save and still pay for everything. I'm a first-generation college student and am nervous, but excited for the new upcoming journey. I participated in Student Government, Key Club (a community service organization), Link Crew (act as a mentor to freshmen), DECA, and National Honor Society. Where I served as president in three of the organizations.

Education

University of Houston

Bachelor's degree program
2023 - 2027

Scottsbluff Senior High School

High School
2019 - 2023

Miscellaneous

  • Desired degree level:

    Master's degree program

  • Graduate schools of interest:

  • Transfer schools of interest:

  • Majors of interest:

    • Accounting and Related Services
    • Business, Management, Marketing, and Related Support Services, Other
    • Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations
  • Not planning to go to medical school
  • Test scores:

    • 1020
      PSAT

    Career

    • Dream career field:

      Accounting

    • Dream career goals:

      Obtain my CPA and see what I can do with that.

    • Crew Member/Shift leader

      Papa Murphy's
      2021 – Present3 years
    • An assistant to other accountants.

      Dana Cole and Partners LLC.
      2023 – 2023

    Sports

    Soccer

    Varsity
    2019 – 20234 years

    Awards

    • Bearcat Award

    Softball

    Varsity
    2019 – 20212 years

    Arts

    • Band

      Music
      2015 – 2019

    Public services

    • Volunteering

      Church, Our Lady of Guadalupe — I was a teacher for two years, helping them with work books and teaching them how to read a bible and why things are they way they are, but how they could change.
      2018 – 2020
    • Volunteering

      G.G.S.A. — I was a coach to them and guided them through their season, ended up getting 2nd in the championship twice.
      2021 – Present
    • Volunteering

      Key Club — Sold Candy Cane Grams to high schoolers
      2022 – 2022

    Future Interests

    Advocacy

    Politics

    Volunteering

    Entrepreneurship

    José Ventura and Margarita Melendez Mexican-American Scholarship Fund
    I want to be something. I always felt like I was not given enough attention when I was growing up, I would act out to get attention and even then it didn’t do much. I watched my older brother resort to the military because he didn’t listen to my dad about the importance of school and how he struggled to be independent because of the way my mother coddled him. I watched my older sister always work. She quit things that she was passionate about and school wasn’t for her, so she works. She likes money and if that’s what she wants then so be it. They both live at home. I don’t want to be like that. I have watched and continue to watch my dad work two jobs to provide for our family of eight. I don’t want him to always have to work two jobs. It breaks my heart now that I am not working in school yet and that I have to take money from him to live and pay for my school. I have watched my mom clean, cook, and always take care of all of us no matter how she was feeling. I always tried to help out when I could because she deserves a break. I have three younger siblings, granted the youngest two are only one and four, so I do not know how their future will be. My other brother, though, is a junior in high school and school is not for him, but he shows no motivation to do something with his life. I know everyone’s path is different in life, but I feel like some people won’t start because they don’t know how, or they are scared to fail. I believe they need someone else to do it first, so they know they can. I am that person for them. I am the first to go to college and I will graduate. I want to be someone to help others professionally, but especially my family. I will graduate so I can pay back my dad and help him, so he doesn’t always have to work two jobs. I will find ways to make everything easier for my mom. I want to make them proud and let them know that their sacrifices did not mean nothing. It means the world to me, they mean the world to me and I want to show them how well they did raising me. I want to show the world that we Mexican Americans may always be working, but it is not for nothing. We do anything to find a way to provide. Our parents always will and have done anything to give us a better life. Many of us often waste the opportunities they give us, but not me. I will succeed. What better way to show gratitude to my family and community?
    Accounting for Change Scholarship
    What is an accountant? An accountant manages financial accounts for a business or person. That is not all they do, though it is a majority of it. Though it is all some accountants do it is very important. Accountants are important to the broader public for so many reasons. One is that everyone has to pay taxes and a lot of people do not know how and so accountants can help them. They are also important because they create reports for individual people and advise them on how to spend their money, which helps the economy run and when the economy is good it is good for everyone. They are also responsible for creating annual reports for businesses that are open to the public and help people decide if they want to invest in a company or not. Which is very important for the public. Accountants can also audit companies to make sure said company is following the rules, GAAP, which helps keep the public safe from being scammed. Businesses have so many transactions and own a lot of assets and liabilities and they need help to keep track of it all. They need advice on what they should do with assets or even liabilities. They need advice on whether they will make more money keeping a piece of equipment, selling it, or renting it. Accountants often use equations to figure it out. Sometimes a business will have a liability because they need it, like insurance, but sometimes some liabilities are not worth it, so the accountants will advise they drop it, or try to lower it somehow. Accountants gather information to present to their clients and sometimes that includes making a presentation or just a couple of papers. This can be fun because they can make it look appealing and they get to use a lot of different applications, which makes them skilled. Accountants take on so many different jobs and roles making them very versatile. Which leads to a very busy and challenging life. Which is exactly why I want to be an accountant. I love to be challenged and truly understand things. Which is what I love. I hate being complacent and I love learning. There is always something to learn and to understand why the company is running how it is and how you can help it. You’re always being challenged because everything is always changing with people, business or not. Accountants are also always in demand, so I know I will always have a job and I will always be learning new things because the resources and tools used for accountancy are always changing like Quickbooks, Excel, technology in general, and regulations/rules. I have taken some accounting classes and truly enjoyed them so much that I had an internship. At my internship, I only got to experience a little of the true accountant experience as I just journaled everything on Quickbooks, but just watching everyone, seemed so cool. So interesting to be doing such important things. I cannot wait to learn even more and further, my accounting skills to help businesses and the broader public. Then give people jobs by opening up my firm and helping people because I will have the power to do that when I have my firm.
    Loxy Burckhard Love is Kind Memorial Scholarship
    Winner
    Love is kind is an opinion, not a fact but still such a powerful statement. To some people love is kind, gentle, and peaceful. To others, love is not known to them if anything may think it's harsh. I believe that everyone should know love somehow whether it is from their parents or a stranger. If only everyone knew that God loves unconditionally no matter who you are. God has angels everywhere and they help him give/show love to all of us. Some people are gifts from God with the amount of love the show, as Grandma Loxy did. He knew she would treat everyone she met with kindness. Her smile, just made you feel loved and wanted, which many people need in this world. Love can be shown in many ways, not only by being told you are loved. I feel that not everyone knows they are shown love daily in their life. I have learned that my parents show us kids love by providing our family with the life we have. It can be them saying good morning, have a good day or see you after school. It's providing a roof over our heads or the clothes on our backs. Although the food isn't what we want to eat, they never let us go hungry. Doing our laundry, cooking and cleaning our house, shows love. Fortunate individuals who are shown and given love should then go and pass the love to others who need and want it! My parents have always taught us to treat everyone kindly and respectfully. They tell us we do not know what goes on behind closed doors at someone’s house, so never make fun of them or treat them differently. My parents have taught and shown us to love and be loved. My parents have also shown us love by encouraging us to do well in school. They have taught us to never settle for less and to do our best. They support us by going to our conferences, musicals, concerts, and games or waiting in the car till our clubs finish. This is love and its kind. Not all children have parents that do any of these things for them. We have been shown love by them teaching us to be responsible and accountable. They use life lessons to help us to understand. We are told to work hard for what we want, it won’t come easy but the results will be worth it. They have taught us how to save money since we started working. Help with applying to jobs, opening a checking/savings account -how to even cash our first paycheck. Some children have no idea how to do that till they take a finance class. I now know this is all done with love. I plan on using my love to help others around me wherever I am. I have started sharing my love with my fellow students by sharing my time, and skills as their Class President. It takes heart to be a leader, to listen and act as a voice. People must be kind and show love for others to believe and trust in you to lead them. Love shows itself in many ways and I can share everything I have learned through love with everyone I encounter. I pray that everyone feels and knows love and kindness in their life as it's a wonderful thing. I pray that the others who do not know love let others who do teach and share what they know so they may stop the cycle in their lives of unknown love.