Chelmsford Teen 1 Of 5 MA Teens Selected For Prestigious Program

WESTFORD, MA — Nashoba Tech senior Nicholas Giannino is one of five students in the state to be selected for the prestigious Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Presidential Scholars program for Career and Technical Education.

Each year, five Career and Technical Education students in the state are selected for the recognition. Each school can nominate one girl and one boy who demonstrate outstanding scholarship and excellence as a member of the school community, leadership, school and community involvement. The students may receive discretionary points for extraordinary achievement, heavy work load, family responsibilities or obstacles overcome.

Since his junior year Giannino has been interning at Bulger Animal Hospital in Lawrence At Bulger, he helps out mainly in the emergency room and exotic-animals department, gaining critical hands-on experience that he hopes will help him pursue a career in veterinary medicine.

“I’ve been assessing critical patients and doing blood draws and IV catheters,” he said in a statement. “It’s mostly cats and dogs, but in the emergency room, we see guinea pigs, rabbits, birds, different reptiles and amphibians, a whole lot of animals.”

Veterinary Assisting Instructor Tracey Warren recommended the teen for both that internship and the leadership award, saying she knew early on his freshman year in 2017 he was a gifted and demonstrated leadership qualities.

"He has always been focused on veterinary medicine and has taught me that there are students that do seek as much material and knowledge as possible," Warren said in her nomination. "This inspired me to develop and utilize all resources available to keep Nick engaged."

Giannino spent his junior year working in Nashoba Tech’s on-site animal clinic, Angell at Nashoba, where Warren said other students looked up to him as a leader.

“I always knew that if Nick was in a room with animals, they would be well taken care of and he would keep everyone else on task when I had to step away,” Warren said.

In 2019, Nicholas was selected to participate in the Adventures in Veterinary Medicine summer program at Tufts University, and he has been a volunteer at the Lowell Humane Society since 2015. He has also got his Fear Free certification and CPR and First Aid animal certification to help prepare him to work in animal science.

Giannino is in the process of applying to colleges, with Tufts and Cornell high on the list, he said.