If you need anything

By Shannon M

A junior at Yerba Buena High School named Destiny Alvarez has a mission: to be something bigger. More specifically, she strives to be an OBGYN. And throughout an ongoing journey of gaining independence and figuring out where her life is headed, her family remains both her inspiration and motivation.

OBGYN is an abbreviation for obstetrician and gynecologist, a combination of two medical fields that provide care for women’s reproductive health and pregnancy. Alvarez’s pursuit begins with high school, where she plans to take a large variety of math and science courses in order to build up to her goal. She’s also done some research on being an OBGYN about details such as requirements, schools, available places and salaries. And this year, she wants to start taking internships.

As a kid, Alvarez revealed, she had aspired to attend San Jose State University. Now, however, she’s reaching for new heights: “I wanna go somewhere where, if someone’s like ‘oh, where are you going to college?’ I’m gonna be like ‘oh, I’m gonna go there,’ and they’re gonna be like ‘damnnn.’”

Her current dream school is UC Santa Cruz, where there are a variety of useful science courses and a beautiful campus. Plus, it’s not far from San Jose, allowing Alvarez to stay close to her sisters in case they need her back home.

“I just wanna overexcel my limits,” she explained. “I want people to be impressed with me. I just wanna do better than everybody else in my family.”

Family is, in fact, a main source of her inspiration for being an OBGYN. Her mother had her at sixteen years old, and as Alvarez put it, “she didn’t really have a doctor to go to… I wanna be that, that doctor for another girl.”

And after fourteen years, her mother had her fifth child. While she was pregnant, freshman Destiny was already interested in a medical profession. Therefore, she accompanied her mother to all her appointments and even predicted the exact day her sister would be born (she was correct!). These visits taught her that being an OBGYN means more than checking up on the baby; the unwritten contract of the job includes being ready for a multitude of questions from the mother.

Through this experience, Alvarez gained both visual insight and fuel for her passion. Her interest was so piqued that she wanted to be there for her sister’s birth but was unable to because of the sudden Covid lockdown, much to her disappointment.

“I stayed up that whole night waiting for my mom to text me,” Alvarez recalled. “I was like ‘is she born yet, is she born yet?’ And then she just kinda grew up and, I don’t know, everybody calls her my daughter.”

She elaborated how, after her sister was born, she became the one to take care of her. She even named her: Audrina. Starting from even before her birth, she’s helped Destiny make sense of life. But Audrina isn’t her only sibling; Destiny is the oldest out of eight in total.

Alvarez recounted the best part of being the oldest with a smile—little interactions between her and her family, such as listening to her sister’s drama or helping her brother with his homework.

“I’m glad I’m the oldest,” she said. “That way they can always come to me if they ever need anything and they all know that.”

On the other hand, there are times when being the oldest weighs on her. There was a moment, for instance, when her middle-schooler sister came out to her as bisexual. Although she tried to be the most understanding she could be, her mom and grandmother had a bit more trouble processing.

“You just get really stressful moments when you wanna help your siblings out really bad but you’re not their parent, you’re not their guardian; you can’t really do much about it,” Alvarez concluded.

Even if it’s the only thing she feels she can do, she nonetheless offers unconditional support to her sister. And in that sense, she endeavors to extend the same support to other women as an OBGYN. Determined to trek the rest of the way toward her career goal, Alvarez upholds her roots by keeping her family—and the love they share—at her core.