As  alumni Iris Aquino Pineda prepared to start her college life and prepared to leave Har-Ber High School she had no intentions of joining NWACC LIFE; mainly because she had never heard of it.

“I have to say my story of how I knew about this program is a bit funny. I was informed by Mr.Nokes, who is an outstanding teacher at Har-Ber High, one day before the applications were due. I had no clue what this program was about but Mr. Nokes just told me that it would be great for me to be a part of this program,” said Aquino Pineda

Since the transition from high school to college can be difficult, NWACC LIFE’s purpose is to ease this transition for students of certain minorities within Northwest Arkansas.

“The purpose of this program is to empower and educate minority high school students about the many oppurtunities that a higher education has to offer,” said alumni Rubicely Hernandez.

The mentors within this program are not only students such as Hernandez, but also faculty at NWACC.

“Important NWACC faculty and staff are part of this program. They provide a lot of information to students about the college and somehow it made my transition easier from high school to college,” said alumni Raul Najera-Bahena.

With help from organizations such as NWACC LIFE, minority students have gained experience in order to be ready for college.

“I have had extrodinary experiences by getting involved in different clubs and being active on campus. Last semester, I was elected to be a senator for the student Government Association and thanks to this orginization I was able to be the first delegation of students that NWACC has ever sent to the capitol to advocate on the students’ behalf. In the next two weeks I will be ending my freshmen year here at NWACC and will continue in the fall and hopefully transfer to Baylor University to get my bachelors in Biology,” said Aquino Pineda.