Mario Armijo graduated in 2010 but didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life until his mother’s battle with cancer inspired him to act. He is now graduating with a bachelor’s in business administration with a concentration in marketing.
Armijo said while he had been attending college he didn’t know what degree he really wanted to pursue. He was taking only one physical education class when his mother called to notify him of her cancer.
“That’s when it kind of hit me like, ‘I really need to get it together,’ so I decided I wanted to go back to UNM. I wanted to actually try to get a degree and actually make an effort,” he said.
Armijo received the news of his mother’s cancer in 2013. At the time, he was pursuing a degree in engineering, but upon realizing he was not interested in that field he switched to marketing.
“Once I figured out I wanted to do marketing that’s when I really got it together and then my mom went into remission,” Armijo said. “It was kind of hard because she wasn’t even supposed to live. They were saying she had lung cancer and they didn’t think she would live longer than two years. So it was rough.”
Watching his mother go to chemotherapy without complaint and continue working inspired him, Armijo said.
“I decided that if my mom can do all this, I can at least go back to school and get my degree in time to do something while I still have her here,” he said.
While his mother did pursue school, she never received a degree. Armijo told her he would.
While he was in his studies, Armijo’s mother went into remission, with her cancer returning only to find out she did not have a cancerous tumor, he said.
“I think the second time it came back is when I really realized she could go. Things could change in a day,” he said.
Ever since, Armijo has been motivated to get through school and, with his mother currently cancer-free, is about to graduate.
“It’s just one of those things that even though I’ve never had cancer myself it affected me more than I thought it ever would,” he said.
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Originally having attended college at CNM and losing his scholarship due to having two no-credit courses and a GPA of 2.0, Armijo said he didn’t have a clear path of where he wanted to go in life.
“I wasn’t really trying at all,” he said. “I was pretty lazy, I didn’t really want to do anything. Then I got that phone call and I was like, ‘Wow, what am I doing with my life?’”
Now graduating with a 3.5 GPA in all of his upper-level courses, Armijo receives support from both his parents — including his dad, who he calls his best friend — while his mother’s fight with cancer has also brought him closer to her, he said.
This semester has gone by really fast for him and Armijo said he already has a job set up with a company he did an internship with. Still, he said, life is filled with question marks and is never exactly as expected.
“I feel like I’m on the right path, I put myself in a position to be successful. I think that’s what you want when you go into college - you want to put yourself in a situation where you feel you can be most successful,” he said.
Armijo wanted to advise remaining UNM students to do whatever they want, saying that, although it’s a cliche, they can achieve anything as long as they’re willing to put the work in.
“If you have the right mindset and you’re able to figure out what you really want then you can accomplish your goals,” Armijo said. “I think that’s the hardest part — trying to find a clear mind through adversity and through all the trouble you’re always going through. If you can just figure out a way to just stay on track to stay focused you can get through anything.”
Nichole Harwood is a news reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
