Once a Pirate, always a Pirate. For so many different reasons, Bertha Mena keeps returning to Riverside
Mena dropped out of Riverside due to an unexpected pregnancy. She came back to Riverside two more times and dropped out with four credits left. She wound up getting her GED from Durham Tech in 2012.
Several years later, she returned to Riverside to work as an administrative assistant for about three and a half years.
“When I was at Riverside, I was kind of able to guide some students and give them advice to make sure they didn’t make the same mistakes that I did,” she said.
She left her job at Riverside to attend college full-time and now works for DPS as a career and technical education (CTE) technician. In her current position, she supports CTE teachers throughout the district.
“[Riverside helped me] understand that we go through different things in life to be able to
prepare for the next thing and to also kind of give back,” Mena said.
She enjoys working at Durham Public Schools because even though she is not working directly with the students she is still doing things to help them out and make sure they get on a path to a good career.
Her job is a new position, so there are things that she still doesn’t know about it, but she is learning how to let go of trying to be a perfectionist and she is starting to learn how to be more understanding.
Now that Mena is out of school, she wishes that she had known how many different pathways to success there are.
“You don’t have to go straight into college or university right after you graduate,” she said. “You can talk to different people and there are so many different paths that you can take so it’s not just the standard that society says.”
