WORCESTER, MA — Quinsigamond Community College awarded more than 1,500 degrees and certificates Thursday at its 61st commencement ceremony, marking the school’s largest graduating class since 2020.
The May 21 ceremony honored graduates for reaching a milestone after years of work and setbacks, while speakers urged them to carry that persistence into their careers and further education.
Keynote speaker Dr. Matilde Castiel, a physician, public health leader and former Worcester health and human services commissioner, told graduates to stay grounded in their humanity and care for others as they move forward.
Castiel shared her own story of leaving Cuba at age 7 through Operation Peter Pan, the U.S.-backed effort in the early 1960s that brought more than 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the United States. She said she and her brother lived in foster homes until their parents were able to enter the country, and that experience shaped her later path in medicine and community health.
“If that 7-year-old girl…at the Havana airport, holding a small suitcase and knowing only three English sentences, could one day stand here speaking to all of you,” Castiel said. “Then I promise you this: there is no limit to where your journey can take you.”
Castiel also spoke about questioning whether she belonged in medicine, noting that only 2 percent of physicians are Latina women while Latinos make up nearly 20 percent of the population. She said her parents’ example pushed her to keep going, while warning that access to educational and professional opportunities remains uneven.
“Graduates of Quinsigamond Community College, you already possess something powerful. You know how to keep going when the odds are stacked against you. This degree is not just a credential; it is proof that you belong in every room that you walk into,” Castiel said.
Student Government Association President Ryan Heath also addressed the class, speaking about the pressure he felt after high school and his decision to attend QCC despite outside expectations. Heath, who plans to transfer to Worcester Polytechnic Institute this fall, told graduates to trust their own judgment even when others do not share their vision.
“What I love about our community college is that all of us were able to reach the same mountain top, yet we’ve all had our own complex and challenging paths of climbing here,” Heath said. “Some of us are balancing multiple jobs or raising a family. Some of us are trying to balancing a social life while stressing about that 11:59 due date. Yet despite all of the roadblocks that were ahead of us and all of the doubt, we still made it.”
QCC President Dr. Luis Pedraja said the ceremony reflected years of determination by students, along with support from faculty and staff who helped them along the way.
“Graduations are the culmination of years of hard work, overcoming obstacles, and pushing onward,” Pedraja said. “Graduation does not signal the end of a chapter, but the start of a new one. It is a commencement, a beginning, a launchpad for future possibilities. It is the beginning of a career, of further studies, of a profession, of a new life.”
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