From adversity to the podium: Student speaker Patrick Cadriel’s journey to UHCL commencement

No one in Patrick Cadriel's family had ever graduated from college. But on Saturday, Dec. 13, he will receive his Bachelor of Science in Behavioral Sciences at the University of Houston-Clear Lake's Fall 2025 Commencement . He will also deliver the student speech for the College of Human Sciences and Humanities (HSH) and the College of Science and Engineering (CSE), sharing his story with more than 521 degree candidates at NRG Arena. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m.

Raised amid frequent moves and significant challenges at home, Cadriel left school in the eighth grade to work full-time and help support his family. Coming from a family where no one had earned a college degree, he said this achievement carries a meaning that is both personal and deeply healing.

Despite the hurdles he faced growing up, Cadriel learned early to pay close attention to people, their choices, patterns, and behaviors. It became a skill he relied on long before he formally studied it. In his early twenties, he met his future wife, Julia, and together they built a blended family rooted in stability, faith, and intentionality. Both first-generation college students, they encouraged each other to pursue education. Julia was also the one who first suggested UH-Clear Lake.

Although Cadriel initially considered the University of Houston's main campus, Julia encouraged him to check out UHCL. Once he visited, he immediately felt the difference. "UHCL is part of the UH System, but it is intimate and calm, a place where you are seen," he said. "And honestly, it was beautiful and more affordable. That mattered, too."

When he discovered UHCL's Behavioral Sciences program, an interdisciplinary blend of psychology, sociology, and anthropology, Cadriel knew he had found a degree path that connected his lived experience and his professional leadership career in the deathcare industry. "My job taught me real-world leadership. UHCL gave me the academic framework to understand why things work the way they do," he said. "It gave structure and language to instincts I had spent years developing."

Throughout his time at UHCL, Cadriel balanced full-time leadership at a major national company while raising four daughters, serving as PTO president at their schools for six years, volunteering in his community, chairing the Adelante associate resource group to uplift, spotlight, and support Hispanic and Latino employees, consumers, and communities, and pursuing his degree almost entirely through night classes and online coursework. "Managing it all required discipline, long nights, and a deep sense of purpose," he said.

One course specifically left a lasting impression on Cadriel. During a discussion, the instructor shared a message that stuck with him: "It is not who we are supposed to be, but who we want to create." For Cadriel, that moment shifted his perspective. "That changed how I saw myself," he said.

For Cadriel, the quiet sanctuary of UHCL's Alfred R. Neumann Library became a grounding space between his workday and his evening classes. "There is a study chair on the first floor, back corner, third from the end," he said. "That was my spot. Even if I sat there only a few minutes, it reminded me that I was doing something meaningful for myself and for my daughters."

Even with a growing career, becoming the youngest leader in his department and the only Hispanic leader at his table, Cadriel carried a private insecurity. He feared that without a degree, he did not truly belong beside his peers. "When people at work talked about college, I would step away so I would not get asked about my education," he said. "I was not proud of that. But it motivated me."

For years, Cadriel kept the details of his upbringing private, worried that sharing the realities of his childhood would lead others to underestimate him. Over time, he gained the confidence to embrace the resilience that had shaped him, even the parts of his story he had once guarded closely.

Sharing his story in the student speaker application was a vulnerable step for Cadriel. When he learned he had been selected, he said he felt grateful and humbled by the opportunity.

As he prepares for commencement, Cadriel reflects on the example he and Julia are setting for their daughters, Adriana, Angelina, Alyssa, and Ava. "They are watching their parents do things no one in our immediate families had done before," he said. "That is the legacy that matters to me, showing them what is possible."