Angelica Trujillo’s road to becoming a pharmacist started when she was 15 years old. Though she might not have expected her first job as a pharmacy clerk at Stringham’s Pharmacy would affect her life years later, it’s clear now the impact that afterschool job has had. It set her on the path toward her career goals.
This spring, Trujillo is graduating from California State University, Bakersfield’s School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics, and Engineering with her degree in biochemistry. In the fall, she will be continuing her education at the Chapman University School of Pharmacy in Irvine.
“I’ve worked in the pharmacy field since I had my first job,” said Trujillo, who is currently a pharmacy technician at Rite Aid. “I just loved interacting with people, so I hope to be able to make a difference and guide them to be healthier versions of themselves. Just to make a difference overall in people’s lives.”
A Shafter native, Trujillo served in the United States Army for eight years following her graduation from Shafter High School. Deployed to Iraq in 2010, Trujillo said she didn’t let her military experience dictate her future and found ways to use the knowledge she gained while serving to her advantage in school.
“Being in the military allowed me to appreciate the little things in life and showed me to never give up,” she said. “It served as a stepping stone to guide me to where I am today.”
In 2015, Trujillo, now 32, decided to go back to school, starting at Bakersfield College before transferring to CSUB. Though she had worked at a pharmacy for years, it wasn’t quite a clear path from that first job to declaring her major.
“At first science seemed kind of intimidating and I didn’t really have an interest in it,” Trujillo said, adding that she was more into mathematics at first. “But then I attended some courses at BC, and they were like nursing courses, but I found them really intriguing. I found it interesting, learning how everything works in the body.”
After transferring as a biology major, Trujillo found herself becoming more interested in her chemistry classes. Biochemistry seemed a perfect mixture of the two subjects. Within the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Trujillo found comradery with her peers, working together in the classroom and outside of it for study sessions.
“I feel like I had good guidance and the professors were very helpful,” Trujillo said of her professors. “I love the way Dr. Danielle Solano taught organic chemistry. She made it so easy to understand and follow. I also liked the way Dr. Sarah Forester taught her chemical food analysis class, and Dr. Karlo Lopez is kind of hard in his courses, but you need that sometimes in life to keep you on your toes.”
Dr. Lopez has seen Trujillo grow throughout her time at CSUB. He said her academic performance is even more impressive considering she has balanced her schedule as a full-time student with a job she works 25 to 35 hours a week and her responsibilities as a mother to a 7-year-old daughter, Arabella.
“Angelica is an exceptional student who completed her education while overcoming almost insurmountable setbacks,” Dr. Lopez said. “In her own words, Angelica simply refused to give up. She is a hard worker and a student who not only wants to pass the course but also wants to understand the material in detail. It has been my privilege to see her grow from a shy and timid person into an independent and determined woman who will be a phenomenal pharmacist and whom I am proud to call a colleague and a friend.”
In the last year, Trujillo’s roles as mother and student collided when COVID-19 forced her classes and her daughter’s to be delivered remotely.
“It was challenging at first,” Trujillo said. “She’d sit next to me and she’d be on her computer and I’d be on mine, and I’d have to constantly be stopping to help her, but now we’ve gotten the hang of things, so she’s doing her own thing with her class and I’ll be on my own.”
Those weren’t the first classes her daughter attended with her. Before the pandemic, Trujillo would occasionally need to bring her along when she didn’t have a babysitter. Trujillo hopes her daughter will be inspired by her determination and ability to overcome obstacles, including a car accident that took Trujillo out of school for a semester in 2017.
“I just kept going,” Trujillo said, crediting her faith as a big source of strength. “I want to be a good role model for my daughter because I know she looks up to me. I don’t want her to think I’m a failure, and I want to show her that anything is possible as long as you keep pushing through.”
In the fall, Trujillo will move to Southern California to start the three-year Doctor of Pharmacy program at Chapman University. Although she will still have a few years of school to complete before she can begin her career as a pharmacist, earning her bachelor’s degree is a time to briefly pause and reflect on all the hard work she’s done so far.
“I’m excited because I felt like this day was never going to come,” she said. “At first, it felt like it was so far away, and now I feel like I’m finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a good feeling, a sense of accomplishment that at least I’m one milestone down. I’m almost there.”
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