College: Texas State University
Major: Business Management
Year: 2016 Dell Scholar
Tell us a little about yourself and how you decided to attend Texas State.
I am a first generation student and the first in my family to attend college – both of my parents were born and raised in Mexico. I have two younger sisters and it’s a big age difference. My family is very close – I go home once or twice a month if I can, depending on exams. It’s a four hour drive, but I make it work. We live in a low income community, so one of the reasons I decided on Texas State was because of financial aid. Texas State provided me with enough aid to attend, plus with the support of Dell Scholars, I don’t pay anything out of pocket for college and I haven’t taken out a single college loan.
What drove you to be the first in your family to attend college?
To break all the stereotypes. All my childhood friends had children at a young age, but I was always like, “I’m going to school.” Texas State was the only Texas school I applied to, and in addition to the financial aid, there is a really good business program here and I knew I wanted to study business.
With your business degree in mind, what do you hope to do after graduating?
I want to open up a small business in Dallas and increase the job rate and give more opportunities to students that are my age now. In my entrepreneurship class, I have been working on an event venue business proposal for weddings and parties. That’s what I hope to launch in the future once I have enough money.
Earlier you mentioned being first generation, what does that mean to you?
It means a lot since whatever I do I have my family in the back of my mind. I represent them in everything I do. They don’t know what college is – so whenever I tell them what I am doing, they are really impressed. At first it is a lot of stress since you have to do everything right. There are a lot of mistakes I have made, but I’ve learned from them and given advice to my sister who will be attending college in four years – like take credits in high school and focus on what you want to do.
Final question, what has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced?
Putting myself out there, I did come with some high school friends, but they decided to leave Texas State. So I just started getting involved with student organizations. When I first joined, everyone in the orgs I joined were juniors and seniors and it was a little intimidating. But little by little I started going to more of their events and then ran for a position and became the vice president and now I’m the president.
