As a senior in his last year at Sunlake, Matthew Santos needs to prepare for the best and the worst once he leaves high school. Luckily, Sunlake provides academies for many different careers like digital design, music, aerospace, and more. For Matthew, the aerospace academy here was a good guide for what he wanted to do in the future. He took many classes at Sunlake to prepare himself for a career in flying like Aerospace Technologies 1-3 and the Private Pilot class. For his career in ten years, Matthew says “I see myself as a pilot in the Air Force or for an airline.”

Many students move far away for school or to be independent, but some students prefer to stay near home to spend time with friends and family. Matthew says, “I hope to be relatively close to home because of family.” But he also wants to start a family in the next ten years; he says he hopes to have “a spouse and at least 2 kids”—one boy and one girl. With the family Matthew plans on having, he’ll need to have a steady income from his piloting career. “Thanks to military benefits, I hope to have a house, car, and stable finances,” he says. One thing Matthew hopes to have achieved in the next ten years is “to become a pilot and to eventually start working on a doctorate in medicine.” The good thing is that Sunlake has prepared him well for the future and for whatever he faces on his own. Matthew says, “Sunlake has helped me learn to work with others and make connections.”