What’s in the waters of Hermanas Mirabal province that is producing so many brain childs? This year, the students of the Hermanas Mirabal province’s Salcedo public school, Liceo Cientifico Dr. Miguel Canela Lázaro, won the NASA Task Challenge Award (International Human Exploration Rover Challenge).
Now, Diario Libre reports on another Hermanas Mirabal gifted student. Adelson Aguasvivas recently graduated from Harvard College where he studied Computer Science and a secondary degree in Ethnicity, Migration and Rights. At 20 years of age, he is employed as of May 2021 as Incoming Software Development Engineer at Amazon, working at the firm’s Cambridge, Massachusetts office. On Linkedin, Aguasvivas describes himself as having a passion for software engineering, data science, product management and education.
Aguasvivas told his story to Diario Libre. He explained that his parents moved to the Bronx in New York from his La Jaguita de Tenares town in Hermanas Mirabal province when he was 10 years old. He recalls his parents saying they did it so he could develop his talents. He said his father worked at a supermarket, packing boxes, and his mom cleaned houses. They would tell him his job was to study. They lived with his grandmother. The US education system worked and the opportunities were for taking, and Aguasvivas took them.
He told Diario Libre he applied to many universities to study engineering – New York University, Cornell, Columbia. Harvard was the last one he decided to send his application, after thinking “What the heck, I have nothing to lose!”
When the letters came back from the university and he was at home alone, he couldn’t believe it when he was accepted at Harvard. He got accepted at the others, too, all with full scholarships, but felt he could not turn Harvard down. He graduated in May 2021.
He recalls he shot a photo of the acceptance letter with his smartphone and sent it to his brother and cousin, and they wrote back telling him to quit forging university acceptance letters. He says when he told his mom, she ran out of her job to celebrate with him at home.
Aguasvivas says he will be working on software for Alexa and Fire TV Stick and other products.
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14 June 2021