Jocelen Matyas, Class of 2006

Jocelyn Matyas plans to tackle a global challenge in her lifetime, through her work reducing ocean plastic pollution in Southeast Asia.

Growing up, Jocelyn thought about being a policy maker or maybe even president, knowing she wanted to have a positive impact on a global scale. She reflects that the SGCS community supported this notion. They “gave me values and a support system; placed me in advanced coursework starting at a young age that allowed me to accelerate my career and dream big.”

And dream big, she did. After graduating with a B.A. in economics with high Honors from UT Austin; She received an M.A. in Globalization, Business and Development from the University of Sussex.

And while Jocelyn’s altruistic passions have now taken her all the way to Singapore, she still thinks about how early exposure to community service at Saint Gabriel’s “encouraged [her] to have empathy for this earth and the people in it.” She attests that “the teachers still today always are my biggest cheerleaders and are family, who encourage me to go for my dreams - as crazy and far as they may seem!”