Samantha Santos works with a drive uncommon for a 17-year-old girl. It is the sort of work ethic that led Santos to graduate from Penn Foster High School by the time she was 16.
“Going to high school, I felt, held me back,” Santos said. “This was the pace I knew.”
That desire comes from her father, who came to America at 17 as a Puerto Rican immigrant. He started working in pizza shops as a delivery driver, built connections and now has a career in construction.
“I used to go to work with him as a young child and I could see how hard he was working,” Santos said. “That really made an impact on me.”
In September, Santos will enroll at Manor College to pursue a bachelor’s in General Management. Even at a young age, she has lofty goals. She wants to obtain her real estate license and start an Airbnb business.
“Working with my dad, his partners would talk about their Airbnbs and they’d say how positive the experience is,” Santos said. “Their investment was paying off. In the next couple of years, I want to have my career set in real estate.”
Santos chose Manor College after coming with her boyfriend to open houses. The institution isn’t far from her family’s home, but in her visits, she felt an openness amongst the community.
“Everybody was just so welcoming from the minute I walked in,” Santos said. “They were always ready to talk, always ready for questions. They weren’t rushing me to talk to the next person. They were genuinely interested in me.”
Santos will play women’s soccer and volleyball at Manor College this Fall. She hopes to join the Rotaract Club and get involved in student government. It’s part of a plan to break an anti-social trend that began during the pandemic.
“Being inside for so long made me very anti-social,” Santos said. “My connection with people wasn’t there anymore. I want people to know that while I come off as shy or a bit nervous when I first meet you, but if we talk I will open up so much. I love being energetic and I look forward to meeting new people!”
Learn more at Manor College. Manor College is a private, Catholic, co-educational, independent institution of higher learning founded in suburban Montgomery County in 1947 by the Byzantine Ukrainian Sisters of Saint Basil the Great.
