Latino youth come to campus to broaden their horizons
More than 200 Latino high school students had a chance to sample the Bruin lifestyle on the Hill under the tutelage of UCLA students, hear from motivational speakers and meet some real-life Hispanic "heroes," many of them UCLA staff and alumni.
High school students attending the Hispanic Youth Symposium pose for photos with Joe Bruin.
The students, selected from Santee, Roosevelt and Belmont high schools, are on campus for three nights and four days, from August 18-21, to attend a college access program, the Hispanic Youth Symposium, designed to help Latino high school students go to and succeed in college. Welcoming them to the campus was UCLA Athletic Director Daniel Guerrero.
This is the first time the symposium is being offered to students in Los Angeles. This year, the event took place in Baltimore, New Mexico, Texas and Fresno. The symposium is sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic College Fund, which provides scholarships and mentoring to students nationwide, as well as a career pipeline for Hispanics in the fields of business, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. UCLA, working through Government and Community Relations, Student Affairs, several student organizations and other units, helped sponsor the event.
On Wednesday, August 19, the students met with more than 90 Hispanic professionals from across the city and picked up practical tips as well as inspirational vibes about getting into college and paying for it during a special "Hispanic Heroes" workshop. Many of these volunteer mentors, who will maintain relationships with some of these students long after the event has ended, shared their life stories as well as answered their questions.
One of the many things youths learned at the symposium was the Eight-Clap.
The list of "Hispanic Heroes' included UCLA six staff, 11 alumni and employees from Kaiser Permanente, the Los Angeles Fire Department, Walt Disney Studios, Southern California Edison, Merrill Lynch, Ford Motor Company and many others. Welcoming students to revolving roundtable meetings with volunteers was UCLA's Cinthia Flores, USAC president.
"My hope is that, through this workshop, we can show students that the sky is the limit, and that there is nothing they cannot achieve with a little inspiration and perspiration," said Manuel Baldenegro Jr., UCLA's director of advocacy programs in Government and Community Relations who organized the Heroes workshop and recruited alumni and staff for the workshop.
"For students who reach out, we are all mentors," Baldenegro said.
Said George Cushman, vice president of programs at the fund: "Many of our students are the first in their families to go to college, and so having a mentor is especially important for them. We encourage our students to seek out mentors who can help them transition through different stages of life. And we also encourage them to serve others by being mentors to younger students."
The L.A. symposium was offered in partnership with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's Partnership for L.A. Schools.
