OCC graduation set for Thursday

Amy R. Spurgeon

ORANGE COAST COLLEGE -- UC Berkeley-bound Kelly Walters will address

1,977 of her fellow graduates as OCC’s student commencement speaker at

its 52nd annual graduation ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Le Bard

Stadium.

And no one is more deserving of the moment than Walters.

The outgoing 22-year-old Santa Ana resident is familiar with adjusting to

life’s changes. After graduating from Santa Ana Valley High School in the

mid-1990s, she set her sights on earning an undergraduate degree from

Loyola Marymount University, a small private Roman Catholic campus in Los

Angeles.

Walters had taken charge of her own collegiate destiny in high school.

Backed with strong emotional support from her parents, she applied for

and earned a spot at UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego and Loyola.

Walters juggled the $22,000-a-year ticket at Loyola between financial aid

and working part-time. But a considerable drop in her financial aid

allocations for her sophomore year forced her to reassess the situation.

Her decision to move back home and attend OCC proved right.

“It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me,” a

confident Walters said. “A lot of people at OCC were in the same

situation. A lot of people at Loyola had parents paying for their

tuition. I felt a little more at home here.”

At first Walters was reluctant about attending a community college.

“My high school counselors had only talked about four-year universities

and hadn’t even discussed community college as an option for me. So I was

four-year-school directed all the way,” she said.

“I was always led to believe that students at two-year schools are the

people who didn’t do well in high school. But that’s not true,” Walters

said. “The first thing is to look at OCC as an opportunity and

investment. It’s a good opportunity to take a bunch of classes in a lot

of different fields.”

Walters blossomed as a communications major at OCC. But beyond academics

and a part-time job, she was active on the college’s speech squad and

earned a certificate in Emergency Medical Technology.

Walters’ journey to Berkeley will begin in January 2001. After completing

her undergraduate work, she intends to enter law school.

“I’d like to claim credit for who she is, but she took advantage of the

gifts God gave her,” said Jean Walters, her mother.

“I don’t believe you can mold your children into what you want them to

be. You need to accept who they are and try to bring out their best

qualities.”

Kelly Walters said the speech she intends to deliver Thursday is

analogous to a “Star Wars” tale: Success requires sacrifice. Friends and

family make the difference, and things don’t always work out according to

plan.

Walters will join her family for a quiet dinner following graduation.