A-Tech graduates told to learn from mistakes, remain lifelong learners

JEFFERSON – The A-Tech Class of 2026 had its awards ceremony Friday, May 22, at Jefferson Area High School, with class speakers encouraging them to look back on and take pride in their accomplishments, but also not to let fear of failure keep them from learning from their mistakes and the personal growth that can be their result.
Sienna Smith Tapia, of the healthcare academy and Lakeside High School, greeted graduates, staff and guests, then told her fellow graduates, “Step by step, we figured it out.”
“We didn’t just sit back and learn,” she said. “We figured it out. At A-Tech you either learn it – or learn it the hard way.”
Smith Tapia touched on each student program and the specific challenges they faced in learning their trades.
“We learned that confidence doesn’t come from always getting it right,” she said. “It comes from trusting yourself enough to figure out what you’ve done.”
She moved on to encourage her peers to take that mindset into the job market and the adult world.
“People talk about ‘the real world’ like it’s something we should be nervous about,” Smith Tapia said. “But the truth is we’ve already been living it.”
She related how their training had involved working with real tools, real skills and real responsibility.
“So, maybe ‘the real world’ isn’t something to fear,” Smith Tapia said. “Maybe it’s just the next place we go to keep figuring it out.”
She called on the Class of 2026 to learn from others and their own mistakes to be lifelong learners, keep a positive attitude – and to check their work.
Janessa Kosik, a healthcare academy graduate from Edgewood High School, piggybacked on the lifelong learner theme in her remarks, “A rough draft life.”
While all the students in the gymnasium that evening came from different schools, families and backgrounds, they’d all learned their own lessons and grown from them as they learned their respective trades.
“A big part of that came from people who guided us along the way,” Kosik said.
The most important lesson they’d learned at A-Tech was how to pick yourself up after a mistake.
“Our mistakes do not define us,” Kosik said. “The effort we put into everything we do and how we choose to go from those moments – that defines us.”
She encouraged her classmates to look in the mirror, look back and contemplate how we’ve changed after learning from mistakes.
“But we kept going anyway,” Kosik said. “We made it. We’re here and we’re graduating after everything that stood in our way, and that’s something worth recognizing.”
Life, she said, is like an essay, requiring someone to rework, rewrite and refine it until it’s something to be proud of.
“Nothing is set in stone, and that’s a good thing,” Kosik said. “We get to keep becoming who we want to be.”
Mia Lafita Arias, a criminal justice program graduate from Lakeside High School, also called on her peers to keep growing.
She said her family encouraged her through several different ideas about what she wanted to be as an adult as they moved from Puerto Rico to West Virgina, and eventually to Ashtabula in 2021.
When she took a field trip to A-Tech, Arias said she learned about the criminal justice program and knew that was what she wanted to do.
“That day turned out to be so much fun,” she said. “It wasn’t just a program – it turned out to be the answer to something I had been feeling for a long time, and I know I wasn’t the only one.”
Each step along the way at A-Tech taught her more about herself and her capabilities.
“I realized all the challenges I had faced weren’t obstacles, they were shaping me into the person I was to become,” Arias said. “I know that’s true for all of us.”
She closed her remarks by conceding that some lessons are hard, but those are the most important ones.
“As we walk across the stage, I want you to remember everything: the good, the bad, the challenges and the moments that shaped you,” Arias said. “Be proud of it all. None of us got here by accident. We’re here because we kept going and even now, we’re still becoming – becoming stronger, becoming braver, becoming the people we must be. So keep going, keep growing and don’t let fear decide your future.”