Meet Lindsey G.
Entrepreneurship graduate
“I'm so glad I had this opportunity to decide what I wanted to do, and I was able to choose my own path.”
2019 will be a big year for Lindsey Gileski. In June, she’ll graduate from Galway High School as her class salutatorian. But she’s also graduating from Hudson Valley with her associate degree in Entrepreneurship this year.
Lindsey earned her high school diploma while simultaneously working on her college degree through the Clean Technology and Sustainable Industries Early College High School program, which is offered at Hudson Valley’s TEC-SMART facility. The program allows students to earn college credit while still in high school, but most don’t move this fast. That didn’t deter Lindsey, though; in order to fast-track the process, she took extra college courses online and during the summer. Now, all her hard work is about to pay off; she’ll officially earn her degree in August, just two months after she receives her high school diploma.
“I’ve been working on this for four years,” Lindsey said. “I came up with the idea as a freshman and have worked toward it every day since, even during the summer, to make sure I could make it happen.”
She says she earned 19 credits this past semester alone, but somehow, the motivated 18 year old also found room in her schedule to run track for Galway High and was a team captain for the Google Challenge, an assignment in one of her college classes that paired students with real companies to create social media marketing campaigns.
This fall, Lindsey will attend SUNY Binghamton for Business Administration. Her long term goal is to become a hospital administrator, but for now she’s just happy to be graduating.
“It was a lot of stress at the time, but now it’s a huge weight off my shoulders to know I’m finishing both my diploma and my degree,” she said. “I’m so glad I had this opportunity to decide what I wanted to do, and I was able to choose my own path.”