MCALLEN,
14
January
2020
|
12:32 PM
America/Chicago

Back at it: Mother returns to continue education

Student of the Week: Marilynn Cabrera

Marilynn Cabrera knows hardship and she knows pulling herself and her family from it.

“I come from extreme poverty and my mother taught me that with education anything is possible,” Cabrera said. “So in a little bit of a scope, that’s really it. Education builds for everything.”

She grew up as one of eight siblings in notable rough Camden, New Jersey.

“My parents worked really hard and taught us always to just study, make sure that’s number one so that we could push up forward to a better tomorrow,” She said.

Cabrera is a mother of two with an accounting degree. Now that her kids are grown she wants to expand her professional skills and re-enter the workforce. She chose the medical coding certificate program at STC to make that happen, which she completed in December.

Her sights are now set on an Associates of Science in Health Information Technology.

“I’ve always loved science, but I didn’t really want to become a nurse, so I looked at the coding program and thought ‘that’s a good mixture of both.’” Cabrera said about selecting her field of study.

The Medical Coding Certificate and Health Information Technology fall under the Health and Administrative Services program that prepares students for work in health care.

Health Information Technicians (HIT) are responsible for maintaining components of health information systems consistent with the medical administrative, ethical, and legal, accreditation, and regulatory requirements of the health care delivery system. “I haven’t been working for many years, so I decided to find something that combines my background in math because I have a bachelor’s in accounting.” She said.

Before enrolling on campus, Cabrera did her homework to make sure she found the best institution. South Texas College checked all of her boxes.

“STC honestly was a good choice because I researched the local colleges and STC seems to offer a more serious and overall better education,” Cabrera said. “More classes, more in-depth. The faculty is very good. For a certificate program, I think they met all my standards, which were really high.”

 

“STC honestly was a good choice because I researched the local colleges and STC seems to offer a more serious and overall better education,” Cabrera said. “More classes, more in-depth. The faculty is very good. For a certificate program, I think they met all my standards, which were really high.”
Student of the Week Marilynn Cabrera

Her career goals are not to just stop at the certificate she wants to explore the field.

“I said ‘let me try this certificate first to see if I really like it,’” Cabrera explained. “Now I’m going to go on to do an associates and see if I can get my RHIA (Registered Health Information Administrator.)”

Her message to students is to tackle goals one at a time.

“Never give up, always have hope,” Cabrera said. “No matter how hard it gets, always just take one step at a time and accomplish one goal at a time and you’ll go very far in life.