GRANTS, N.M. – Danielle Rael, a 23-year-old who graduated from Grants High School in 2015 and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, recently received a considerable amount of recognition for her story about coming from a small town and creating success for herself through education. Rael’s story was featured through the Walgreens Boots Alliance website and shared on a variety of social media and email outlets. Soon it became a nationally shared story. Rael said people even started to recognize her at the Walgreens’ locations where she works.
“Honestly, it has been unreal getting the amount of recognition that I have recently because of my success and determination. It has been unreal, because I never thought this would happen for somebody like me,” said Rael.
The start of Rael’s success story began when she was younger and spent a lot of time accompanying her grandfather and grandmother, “Nana and Tata” as she calls them, on trips to the pharmacy. Rael became fascinated with the pharmacists and how much knowledge they had when it came to their services and the drugs they provided. That fascination soon turned into a feeling of inspiration as Rael saw the way that the pharmacists were able to truly help and serve not only Rael’s grandparents but the community as well. Rael decided that she would set forth on a path towards college and becoming a pharmacist in hopes of emulating the impact those pharmacists had and being able to give back to her community.
Rael worked hard in high school to get good grades and ensure her future as a college student. When Rael graduated in 2015, she went on to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Science at the University of New Mexico. She will graduate this December. Rael is still currently in pursuit of her academic goals. She is in her second year of pharmacy school and will be graduating with her Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree from UNM’s College of Pharmacy in May of 2023. Part of what people have found so inspiring about Rael’s story is that Rael is a firstgeneration college student and came from a small town and a background in which she had numerous financial obstacles to overcome.
Luckily, Rael was able to receive financial aid through scholarships. Two local scholarships that played a great role in assisting Rael throughout all four years of undergraduate school were the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship and the Continental Divide Electric Co-op Scholarship. According to Rael, scholarship opportunities tend to become scarcer as students transition from undergraduate to graduate school, but she was fortunate to become a recipient of the Walgreen’s Diversity & Inclusion Excellence Scholarship, which is what led to her story being published and widely recognized. Aside from scholarships and her job, Rael says she currently depends mostly on student loans.
Rael had these words of advice for high school students in Grants regarding scholarships and student loans: “Apply, apply, apply. You never know which scholarships that you can be chosen for, and it is literally free money to help you pursue your goals. Even if you do not have the best grades, try to build a résumé with community involvement, because often times, grades are not the only thing that these organizations look at, but rather you as a person. There is such a bad reputation around the thought of student loans and the interest rates that they have and having to pay that money back, but they are literally there to help students. There is no way that I could pay for pharmacy school or live in general without them right now, but I am content with that, because at the end of the day I know that I will not stop until I achieve my goals, and once I do, I will be able to pay all the money back.”
Rael also offered encouragement for students in Grants who may feel that college is simply out of their reach by saying, “Simply believe in yourself. Create goals for yourself; work hard; and don’t stop until your goals [are met]. Prove others wrong. I feel like there can be so many obstacles and people telling you that you can’t do this or that because of where you come from or the lack of resources you may have. Prove them wrong, and make your biggest hopes and dreams come true, but also realize that nothing is going to be handed to you. And it may not be easy, but in the end it will be worth it. I can’t tell you how many people thought I was crazy after graduation whenever I would say that one day, I was going to get a Doctor of Pharmacy [degree] and become a pharmacist. Nobody in either sides of my family had ever attended college and gotten a degree. My father passed away unexpectedly when I was just 15 years old, and my mother was a waitress throughout most of my life. College wasn’t something that even seemed practical to be honest. I worked so hard throughout my entire life, especially in high school to get good grades, because I knew that was going to create opportunity for me to attend college, get scholarships, and make my dreams come true.”
Although the future is somewhat unknown and everchanging, Rael is excited to enter it with impact, service, and making a difference in her New Mexico community at the forefront of her mind as she continues to inspire others and achieve her goals and dreams.