HEB ISD 2021 graduate receives more than $450,000 in scholarships offers
EULESS, Texas - A member of the class of 2021 from Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD received more than $450,000
in scholarship offers.
Alessandra Maria Grady graduated from the International Baccalaureate program at Trinity High School in Euless and will be attending the University of Texas at Austin this fall.
Grady was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rice University, Southern Methodist University, the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering Honors program. She was offered $492,712 in scholarships.
Interested in majoring in Mechanical Engineering, Grady decided to pursue a degree in the engineering field due to her curiosity for STEM.
"I really enjoyed doing STEM and I’m a very creative person, and so engineering just seems like the perfect way to combine all of the math with a lot of creativity," Grady said. "Engineering in general has always been really fascinating to me. Just seeing those advancements and seeing how the world changed and how I could be part of someone that creates that, that was really exciting to me."
Grady’s favorite subject might have been math and she might have been the president for her school’s Mu Alpha Theta, a Mathematics Honor Society, but she did not restrict herself to only STEM-related activities.
She wanted to get more involved at Trinity like her brothers did in high school and hold decision-making roles.
"I just really enjoyed seeing those other aspects of school that maybe not everyone who just went to school got to see, and I like to see really the culture of Trinity," Grady said. "It made high school a lot more fun to not just have the academic aspect but to also have the social aspect."
She was a HEB ISD Student Ambassador, her school’s Class Council vice president, a secretary for Model UN and the Spanish Honor Society, a junior varsity tennis player, the editor-in-chief of her school’s yearbook, the Triune, and more.
Trying to juggle extracurriculars, Advanced Placement classes and International Baccalaureate all at once was not easy, but Grady likes challenging herself and is grateful for the experiences she had over the past four years.
"I would say advice to younger students is just find those activities that you like and don’t be scared to try new things," Grady said. "It’s important to find what you’re passionate about and find something you can invest in…if you just join a lot of things that you don’t care about, it’s not going to be fulfilling."
Though she considered accepting her offer to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she knew UT Austin was the right place for her.
"After touring all of them, I realized that UT is where I want to be, and I’ve always grown up supporting UT because my parents were alumni, and so always seeing that culture and seeing campus so many times and then actually looking for it myself, I could just see myself going there," Grady said. "I had to understand that I’m not going to school for the name, I’m going for the experience."