Diana Borrero: From Student to Mentor and Beyond

For a long time, school felt like a place Diana Borrero wasn’t sure she could navigate.

“There were days when teachers had to pull me out of the car while I was crying,” she recalls of a particularly rough patch in seventh grade.

After spending time in an online homeschool program, returning to a school community wasn’t easy. Showing up each day took effort. Finding her place took time.

But slowly, things began to change.

With support from teachers, staff, and classmates, Diana started finding her footing. By her sophomore year, she had settled into a rhythm—and found a community she could lean on.

“Once I started getting into the groove, I had a lot of support from teachers and other students,” she said.

Eventually, Diana’s path at Northpoint took an unexpected turn: from being the student who needed a little extra help to becoming someone students could turn to for help themselves.

After graduating, she took a job at Northpoint’s front desk, where she became a familiar face to students across campus. She later joined the Smart Lab as an Educational Assistant, working at the school for two-and-a-half years before moving on to pursue a career in HR. In that time, she helped students with assignments, organization, and the day-to-day work of staying on track.

Her own experience gave her a perspective that couldn’t be taught in a training manual.

“I can tell when a student is struggling,” Diana said. “I know how much time it takes to do everything.”

Diana’s experiences at Northpoint on both sides of the student-staff relationship, have given her a much different perspective than the seventh grader who once struggled just to get out of the car. It’s experience and earned empathy she carries forward into her work in Human Relations.

Even after leaving to pursue her career, Diana drops in to visit from time to time, and we’re always excited to hear what she’s up to next. After growing from a reluctant student into a graduate, colleague, and mentor, Diana knows better than most how to find her way forward.