Daniel Castro is a student at College of the Sequoias–he goes by ‘Danny’ more colloquially– majoring in communications to become a public speaker.

At eight years old Daniel Castro was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) this meant Castro had to miss 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, and a little bit of sixth grade to recover.
Castro went on to explain that dealing with cancer as a child was one of the biggest challenges he had to overcome in his life. It has played a role in why Castro wants to become a public speaker. To spread his cancer survival story, as a light for others.

“One of my dreams is to spread my story about cancer, and become an influential speaker, and spread the love of people,” said Daniel Castro.

Another, shaping moment in Castro’s life was his grandfather’s passing. In 2019, his Grandfather went to a nursing home with dementia. Castro took a year off of school from Reedley College to help take care of his Grandfather. Castro said after spending so much time in the nursing home, and getting closer to his grandfather his experiences there humbled him.

“ The greatest thing I did was taking a semester off and taking care of my grandfather when he was in the nursing home. I gained a lot of appreciation for my Tata. I’m proud to carry his last name,” said Daniel Castro.

As mentioned before, Daniel Castro attended Reedly college for two years, before transferring to College of the Sequoias due to class issues. Castro explained that strict prerequisites at Reedley College didn’t work for him, an example is that to take certain public speaking classes he needed to take certain English classes. Although Cos has prerequisites for some classes, Castro found it is easier to take the classes he was most passionate about here at COS without the struggle of needing to take strict prerequisites. All to reach his goal of becoming a public speaker.

“ I came over here, and I’m glad every second that I made the switch,” said Daniel Castro.

Some other goals Castro has for the next ten years go as follows: graduating from COS, moving to San Francisco or Los Angeles, and reaching his career aspirations. Daniel mentioned that his favorite public speaker icon is actor Matthew McConaughey. Daniel wants to imitate Matthew McConaughey’s motivational intuition, and recommends his memoir Greenlights, to everyone, even people that are not public speakers.

“[Matthew McConaughey] is one of the best public speakers, when he gets an Emmy award he always finds a way to turn it into a motivational speech. To always motivate his fan base,” said Daniel Castro.

Castro balances his school life, and work-life at the store Guess with hobbies like legal car racing on a strip, referring to himself as a ‘car-guy’. And, long drives out to the beach to be in nature.

“My hobbies are kind of boring to normal people because I just really like nature. If I could take a drive out to the beach and chill and watch the waves I could do that for hours,” said Daniel Castro.