Tufts Senior Portrait: Anthony Mahoney-Pacheco

He chose this university over another because he hoped to be “pushed more by peers and professors”

Anthony Mahoney-Pacheo

At any one point in his Tufts career, Anthony Mahoney-Pacheo, A19, held at least four jobs. For three years, he worked as an emergency department technician at Boston Medical Center and St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, an hour from campus by car. He recruited and trained staff for Tufts’ dining halls, and, two of the four years, was a resident assistant for thirty first-years, earning him room and board. On top of all that, he was regularly on-call for campus emergencies for fourteen-hour overnight and ten-hour day volunteer shifts with Tufts Emergency Medical Services—and performed with Tufts’ urban dance troupe, Spirit of the Creative.

Despite often working more than forty hours each week, Mahoney-Pacheco managed a 3.99 grade point average as a biology major. “I did better in college than I did in high school,” he said. He could have attended UMass-Dartmouth, near his home in Fall River, on scholarship, but Tufts seemed like the kind of place he’d be “pushed more by peers and professors.”

He was right. “The things we talk about, the people I meet and the things they do—the guidance from the career center—it’s all been even better than I expected,” Mahoney-Pacheco said.

Both of his parents are elementary schoolteachers nearing retirement in struggling urban districts, Fall River and nearby New Bedford. Following their example of community service, Mahoney-Pacheco grew up working in local soup kitchens and shelters.

“On my mother’s side I’m a sixth-generation Fall Riverite; on my dad’s, it’s three generations”—and his aunts and uncles also reside on the same block. He’s excited to set out on his own after graduation, when he hopes to land a business or consulting gig in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or San Francisco. “Because of my experience, the business of health care interests me a lot,” Mahoney-Pacheco said. “Even if I end up in medical school, I’m interested in an MBA, too. But I’m two or three years away from grad school.”

Though his first post-college job isn’t lined up yet, Mahoney-Pacheco is hopeful. “There’s time,” he said. “Senior year has been like freshman year all over again, where I’m trying to find out what I like.” Having spent his senior spring semester networking, he remembers the mentors who told him about a career being “a long road.”

“I think about that a lot,” Mahoney-Pacheco said. “My parents became teachers thirty-five years ago. I don’t expect it’ll be the same for me.”

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