Luis Teran

Luis Teran came to the United States from Ecuador at age five, with his mother and sister.

Soccer became his passion. He was really good at that.

Studying? Not so much. He simply wasn’t a fan of school.  It had been that way in high school, and then at Suffolk Community College. 

But when he visited Sage, after being recruited to play on the soccer team, Luis “fell in love with the place.”

He realized that this small community suited him, and he sensed that while he’d always had trouble getting focused on his studies, things would be different at Sage.

“I just knew it somehow,” he says.

And he was right.

This was due in large part to the way his professors in his Business Administration major went out of their way to get to know him.

“Professor Ko, she’s amazing. I still talk to her. Professor Yoruk. Professor Brownell. Dean Fredericks. They were all great. “

You have to understand, the fact that this very positive college experience happened to Luis still blows him away.

“School was never a priority for me,” he says. “My attitude was, just get through it. But at Sage I felt like I was there for a purpose.”

After graduating in 2016, Luis went on to get his master’s in Human Resource Management at Stony Brook University. He would eventually become a New York City cop, a job he loves and expects to have for years to come, moving up through the ranks to assume leadership roles.

He remembers being interviewed for the police job, when the interviewer reviewed his academic record and began scratching his head. Luis’s high school and community college grades had been weak, but in college he achieved a 3.2.

“What happened?” the interview asked him.

“Sage happened,” Luis said.