LEWISTON — Eighth-graders will hear about succeeding in high school Monday from Lewiston’s Jennifer Bergeron, who just completed her first year of medical school.
Bergeron is this year’s star speaker during the ninth annual START, or Steps to Accomplishing Real-Life Transition. The program helps eighth-graders transition to high school.
Bergeron graduated from Lewiston High School in 2010, from Bates College in 2014, and has finished her first year at Tufts University School of Medicine. She plans to become a doctor.
This summer, Bergeron will work for Maine Medical Center Research Institute focusing on how high cholesterol affects the heart. This fall she’ll travel from Boston to Bangor every other week to spend time at the Penobscot Community Health Care.
Bergeron will share her student journey with the Class of 2019, whose members will enter high school this fall. She will talk to students at 8 a.m. and parents in the evening in the middle school auditorium.
Bergeron’s success makes her an exciting choice to offer advice for incoming freshmen, middle school Aspirations Director Billy Jo Brito said.
While a student at Lewiston High School, she took upper level classes and enrolled in the health science program at Lewiston Regional Technical Center. As a high school student she was fascinated by the cardiovascular system and wrote a manual on how to read EKGs, said her former teacher Pam Abzan. Abzan said she still has the manual and uses it to motivate other students.
At Bates, Bergeron studied under biological chemistry professor Paula Schlax, who was one of her mentors.
Also Monday, eighth-graders will attend workshops, including those on college financing and Lewiston Regional Technical Center programs.
On Monday afternoon they’ll hear about healthy ways to use Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook by social media strategist Abbie McGilvery of Portland.
Students will also hear about how to have good communication skills from Andrew Harris of Portland Stage, and about high school from Lewiston High School substance abuse counselor Viky Wiegman and Aspirations Coordinator Doug Dumont.
“It’s an action-packed day,” middle school educator Tracey Blaisdell said.
For parents, Bergeron will talk about how they can help their students do well in school at 6 p.m.
Parents will also hear from former middle school principal, now high school principal, Shawn Chabot, who will answer questions and talk about high school grading.
For more information, call Brito at 795-4180 or bbrito@lewistonpublicschools.org.
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