Grad returns to school to improve career

NAME: Jaclyn Cavazos

AGE: 25

OCCUPATION: Sales clerk at Sears/Student worker at TSTC

CITY OF RESIDENCE: Harlingen

NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN FAMILY: 6 total (5 adults, 1 baby)

GROUP REPRESENTED: Recent college graduate who couldn't find a job in her desired field

HARLINGEN - Jaclyn Cavazos is back at Texas State Technical College, pursuing a second career path after realizing that the current economy is affecting the Rio Grande Valley's job demands.

Cavazos, 25, graduated from TSTC in 2006 with a degree in digital imaging technology. After about a year without finding an job in this field, she decided to return to school and pursue a teaching career.

"Teaching is always in demand - there's always a job somewhere," Cavazos said. "And I like it - I'll get to meet new (students) every year."

Cavazos said she thinks she will be able to find a teaching position in any city - here or outside the Valley.

Cavazos originally pursued a digital-imaging career after watching her father who was involved in making a few local commercials, she said.

"There were a lot of jobs in Austin and San Antonio and I would have had to move," Cavazos said about her job search in the digital imaging field. "There was not too much here."

"The only jobs were like jobs to design football programs - and that was only seasonal," Cavazos said. "If I would have moved to San Antonio, I would have probably found a job, but I don't have the means to move."

It costs about $1,100 per semester to attend TSTC, but Cavazos said financial aid is covering most of the expenses. She said that she only pays a couple hundred dollars out of her own pocket each semester.

Cavazos now works two part-time jobs and goes to school full-time. She plays an important role in her family's income.

She works about 20 hours a week at the TSTC counseling services department and about 20 hours a week at Sears.

Cavazos earns about $230 per two-week pay period at TSTC. Her paychecks from Sears vary each pay period depending on how much commission she earns, she said, but the hourly rate is $6.

"I give half of my checks to my dad," Cavazos said. "We all pitch in and help."

Cavazos said she, her two sisters and father combine incomes to pay for a car, car insurance, Internet access, electric bill, gas and groceries.

The family of six also coordinates schedules to use the family's only vehicle. There is always a lot of family communication about work, school and leisure schedules, Cavazos said.

"We wouldn't be anywhere if we didn't work together," Cavazos said.

Besides helping with the family expenses, Cavazos said that her monthly expenses are $45 for her cell phone bill; $160 payment on a personal loan; about $80 on entertainment, such as going out to eat with friends, and about $100 on toiletries and clothes.

Cavazos said she now keeps receipts from her purchases to track her expenses. She has also cut back on going to the movies and going out to eat.

The family is also less wasteful with groceries now, Cavazos said. The family cooks only what they will eat each meal.

"It makes you budget," Cavazos said about the current economy. "I can't eat out every other day; I can't go to the movies all the time now; and I don't drive around for no apparent reason."

"With this economy prices are going up on everything," Cavazos said.

Cavazos also said she can't afford to pay a monthly gym membership so she exercises with workout videos at home.

Despite the obstacles that she currently faces, Cavazos said she plans to tough it out and continue what she started with a teaching career, hoping for a more prosperous future.

"I'll be doing something I enjoy and I won't be just over broke anymore," Cavazos said. "It seems like there's a lot more possibilities here in teaching."

Cavazos said she also hopes to continue on to earn her bachelor's degree in applied technology at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College so that she can combine both educational backgrounds to teach graphic design.

After finding a teaching job, Cavazos hopes to move out of her parents' home, she said, because she wants to be self-sufficient and make it on her own.

Cavazos said if she could do things all over again, starting with high school graduation, she would have gone away to college rather than staying in the Valley, she said.

She hopes a career in teaching will help her save the money she needs to move away from the Valley for at least a couple of years.

"I don't want to spend my entire life in the Valley and say I never did anything."