Interviewers: Lux Darkbloom and Jimena Prieto Andrew
Interview Subject: Leonardo Ruiz (LR)

Lux: All right, so could I have you introduce yourself, telling us a little bit about your interests, your hobbies, your family background, that sort of thing. Anything you’d like to share. 

Leonardo: Yeah, so my name is Leonardo Ruiz. I’m a third-year mechanical engineering major. My emphasis is in robotics and controls. I was born in Anaheim, California, but moved down to West Jordan when I was younger, just due to financial reasons. I mean, California is pretty expensive. We are a family of five. I have an older sibling who’s 22 and a younger sibling who’s 15. Both my parents come from Mexico–my mom from Jalisco, Guadalajara, and my dad from Mexico City. So kind of just, like, I guess, diversity within Mexico itself. I really love to watch and play soccer. I’m actually a Chivas fan because of my mom. She’s from Guadalajara, so I really root for them. But on the other side, my dad’s an America fan because a lot of them are from Ciudad de Mexico. They really love America so it’s kind of just a clashed household. It’s kind of already just a fight every time the game happens. 

Jimena: The rivalry! 

Leonardo: We like to just mess around and just talk a lot. Outside of that, I guess within school as well, I’m also the president for our Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers chapter. We’re just doing a lot of outreach to high school students about careers in STEM, as well as promoting professional development within the Hispanic community. So I guess that’s a little bit about me. 

Lux: That’s incredible. That’s so cool. I totally want to hear more about that program. Can you talk a little bit about it? 

Leonardo: Yeah, so SHPE, or we call it SHPE, kind of like a boat, but the acronym is S-H-P-E. Like I said, we’re professional development, but what we do is we like to bring companies from actual industries, like recently we had Marathon Petroleum. I actually found a lot of my internships through them. So Edwards Life Sciences, Dow, but we’re just a huge community where Hispanics, not only just in engineering, but outside of engineering, come in and they learn about professional development. They talk with real-life recruiters and they get, I guess, hand-in-hand advice. So whether they need a resume, they can sit in with the recruiter and say, “Hey, what do you think about this? What can I improve?” Or maybe they want help introducing themselves to a recruiter. Oh, okay, then have a conversation with them, see what they need to do and all that stuff. It’s also an opportunity for them to get, I guess, a first dive into internships, as a lot of these companies only present internships that just barely opened or haven’t opened to us. Since they’re, I guess, huge sponsors for our corporation. That’s a little bit, just a basically huge professional development. We’re here to get you that first step into the professional world.

Lux: That is so cool. I love to hear programs like that exist on our campus and reaching out to high school students is just so important, too. So kind of a shift a little bit, but what initially motivated you to pursue higher ed? 

Leonardo: Yeah, so there’s actually quite a lot of factors. I guess one of the driving things was my mom. Just always, always, always, ever since I started, I guess, kindergarten, always mentioned the importance of education and that there was this place called college. Obviously, I was five-years-old, so I didn’t understand what that was. And even until I hit maybe like 15, I still didn’t know. So it was a lot of just my parents telling me like, “Hey, you got to do this, you got to do this, you got to do this.” Because they work in places where there aren’t people with college degrees. And so she just told me the importance, what it does, and what it opens.

And then I guess another opening factor was my father. He worked three jobs when I was younger, just to sustain me and my brother. And then my sister was introduced, so he worked even more. And then just kind of went through those technicalities, working three jobs, balancing that, balancing family, and balancing just everything else that he had. And just seeing the way he worked and how hard he worked, it kind of just made me think, okay, I need to think of a way that I can do that, but in a more efficient route where not only am I just promoting myself, but I’m also promoting a community that like, “Hey, we can do this kind of thing.” We’re not just chasing people whose parents have college degrees. We’re chasing people who did this for the first time as well. People who look like us and talk like us, act like us, etc. Even now, my dad is working two jobs. My mom, still working the one job in healthcare where there’s a lot of people with college degrees. And once again, just a repetition of the importance of “You need to get a higher education.” Because honestly, it just opens up so many pathways that maybe I initially didn’t think of before. 

Lux: Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to know what you don’t know before you get into that headspace of thinking about…I mean, it’s your future. It’s not even just like, “Do I go to college? And what will my major be? But yeah, like, what will my future career path be as, you know, like a young adult?” Like, that’s just really kind of hard to even imagine, you know? Would you agree, Jimena? 

Jimena: Sorry, can you repeat that one more time? 

Lux: Oh, no worries. Just like the difficulty of…gosh, how do I put it?…No worries. We will come back to it, I’m sure. 

Jimena: I totally, I do get what you’re saying. Like, it’s just hard, especially as a young adult. You’re like, well, what am I supposed to do? Especially when like, you know, we see what our parents do. For example, my dad works in construction. So I’m like, I don’t want to do that, right? Like working outside of the environment. But it was like, they were always stressing like, “Hey, that’s why you need to go to college so you can work like a nice, comfortable job.” So it’s hard to imagine that, like, where we are now or where we could potentially lead us, like, where our parents are. Like, is that kind of what?

Lux: Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, I think that’s a very, I think, relatable, pretty common experience, too, of like, “Looking at what my parents have done, I’m not sure if that’s the right path for me,” you know. So you mentioned that you’ve chosen your major and that you’re going into robotics. What year are you in school right now?

Leonardo: I’m in my third year currently, so junior.

Lux: Nice. OK, so going back a little bit historically, I’m wondering if you could describe for us, like, what it was like when you first got to campus as a brand-new college student. 

Leonardo: Yeah, it was definitely intimidating, to say the least. I have an older brother who also just recently graduated from mechanical engineering. And I’ve heard some of the stories, but I haven’t quite, I guess, seen them. And one thing that one of my professors always used to say is that we have to see it to believe it. And so hearing those stories from him, I was just like, “Oh, OK, that sounds cool, but I don’t really understand that. So I’m just going to just let it fly by.” And so…until 2023 when I first started, I stepped on campus and I go, “Wow, this is just a huge space. There’s just so much to do. And I’m only located in one section. All the engineering classes are just right there. There’s a huge campus beyond that.” And I guess, at first, it was hard to grasp because going from high school where you’re in one building; middle school, you’re in one building; elementary, you’re in one building; to now a campus where everything’s everywhere. I guess it was a little overwhelming at first trying to figure out what classes do I have? How do I get from this place to this place in 15 minutes? Because I’m going to need to run. And then there’s also foot traffic. There’s also traffic parking here and traffic getting here.

It was just very, very intimidating, but also very eye-opening because now I’m listening to my brother’s stories and now I understand what he’s saying. And now getting those stories myself, I’m now telling my younger sister. She’s probably doing the same thing that I did, just letting them pass by her head because she doesn’t understand what that means. But just being able to, I guess, see that I’ve grown from my first day on campus till now where I have my own experiences and my own stories to tell, I guess it just made that intimidation and that overwhelmment just kind of pass. It makes it feel like experiencing those things was worth it. Because at the end, I kind of just fought past it. 

Lux: So you said your older brother is also a mechanical engineering major and he just graduated? 

Leonardo: Yeah. 

Lux: Wow. Dang. Y’all have very…you’re all extremely motivated. 

Jimena: I know! Engineering is not for the weak.

Lux: It’s true. Seriously. That is an incredibly challenging field to get into. But yeah, that’s so cool. Anyway…

Jimena: I do have a quick question before we move on. So, Leo, you talked about how it was a little bit intimidating. You know, you’re in your third year now. What kind of led you to wanting to tutor all these students? Because in our first-gen space, you’re always offering your time to students. I always see you, you know, writing equations on the whiteboard and like walking students through that. But then it’s like, you’ve told me that, you know, you do your studying outside of being in first-gen because you want to dedicate as much time as you possibly can to those students. Like, why do you think, you know, that is? 

Leonardo: Yeah, that whole thing started in high school. I kind of had someone who is currently attending the year right now. He’s a fourth-year electrical [engineering major]. But he kind of did the same thing for me when I was taking calculus and, like, those higher maths. But I didn’t understand certain concepts, and he would just jump in and say, “Okay, this is how you do this. This is what this is telling you.” And really just explain like, “Hey, we have a problem in front of us, but we really need to break down the problem into smaller pieces to understand.” So I guess it was his mentorship that really fueled it. Because then later when he left in my second semester of my senior year of high school, I started to take that mantle for another calculus class, and I started tutoring there, just kind of remembering the lessons that he taught me and, I guess, the story that he told me. And it just kind of stuck with me, the fact that we made it here. I did this. I have my skills. My skills aren’t for me. My skills are for other people. My skills are for the betterment of the world. That’s kind of, I guess, the engineering mindset. We develop all these skills in school. We do all these skills in internships and experience to help the world, not to help ourselves. So it kind of just translates to the students as well. I want to develop myself professionally so I get all my internships and all that so I can have experiences to talk to, but also devote that time to them as well, saying, “Okay, once again, we’re giving you these skills so you can pass those on to new people and help them out.” Just kind of sending that chain forward and forward and forward. But once again, just growing up with my parents being from Mexico, it was all about community. It was all about family. It was all about keeping our connections together. So being able to do that for the students, especially in the first-gen space, who share that story with me, just kind of, I don’t know, I guess, helps me gain hope for the future. Because then in the future, we’re going to have people that do the same. They’re going to help each other out, give the future the skills that they need in order to maintain themselves and also better the world at the same time. So a lot of my motivation, I guess, is from previous mentors, previous leaders, as well as just experiences that I’ve heard and just the experiences that I’ve experienced.

Jimena: Thank you for answering that. I just, I think it’s really cool every time I come into the space, you’re teaching someone or you’re helping them out and like you’re taking time out of your day. So I think that’s really special to see because, you know, that is very time-consuming. So the fact that, you know, you’re giving your time to these students and you enjoy it, it’s really nice. 

Leonardo: Thank you guys. Thank you guys so much for letting me use the space. I know I can get pretty loud sometimes. 

Jimena: No, the space is just for you guys. So use it as you’d like.

Leonardo: Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. I just, the amount that I roam around in the room just to do it because for some reason my lessons, I’m just, I’m in front of a board. I have this weird tendency where I start to walk around the room, and I start to explain as I walk. I don’t know why I do that. I guess it’s just more of, so that way they can get their attention off the whiteboard, and they can maintain attention to me. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but I just like to walk around and explain everything as much as I can. It’s kind of an odd teaching strategy. Yeah, if it works, it works. Exactly. 

Lux: Sounds like maybe a future professor of engineering up here. 

Jimena: Right? That’s what I said.

Leonardo: We’ll see. We’ll see. 

Lux: No pressure, of course. I was wondering, you mentioned your dad is a big source of support, both of your folks…and your older sibling, too. I’m wondering if you’ve had any mentors on campus who have provided you with support or even just encouragement or, you know, like a safe place to go to talk? 

Leonardo: Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t necessarily say that I had direct mentors. I guess you could say I had unofficial mentors. My freshman year, especially, I had the SHPE president at the time. He took me under and really walked me through a lot of professional development with him, got me into his meetings so he could see what it’s like to talk to companies and what it’s like to be, I guess, real time in the professional world. As well as I’ve had, I guess, friends that I have now who have mentored me, not only my first year, but my second year. And now they’re just people that I talk to, maintain relationships with. So I guess unofficially I’ve had mentors that have really pushed me past and said, like, “Hey, I’m in my third year. I’m in my fourth year. It’s going to get better. Right now it sucks because you’re doing all your prerequisites. You’re doing all your build up classes. So it’s going to take some time. But once you hit there and you get all these, I guess, achievements along the way, you’re going to see that it’s better. So just stick with it and keep fighting through.” And they also share their stories with me because, honestly, sometimes it does feel quite lonely, especially being first-gen. You’re like, “Oh, shoot, does anybody have the story that I do?” So hearing these guys say the same exact things that I’m going through, just, oh, okay, there is a solution. There is a way around it. I’m not just in great water. 

Lux: Yeah, that peer support makes a huge, huge difference. I feel like that’s some of the most effective support we get on campus, truly, is from peers. So it’s really cool. So I imagine you are a full-time student. Is that right? 

Leonardo: Yes, I am full-time. 

Lux: Okay. And do you also work in addition to school? 

Leonardo: Just recently, last year I worked with the LEAP program. I was a peer advisor for them. And then this year, I am working with the first-generation space as a mentor, as well as continuing my internship from the summer with Edwards Life Sciences. So kind of managing kind of like two smaller part-time jobs as well as school. 

Lux: So almost like the equivalent of a full-time job, essentially. How do you balance your priorities or those different projects, like with your school life versus your work/internship versus having a social life because that’s super important to being a human, right? 

Leonardo: Yeah. So I guess I like to tie my social life in with everything. I like to talk to myself. Not only do I talk to myself through every problem, but I also like to talk to people as I’m doing that. So when I go to work–thankfully I’m working in the sort of a company where I can start at five in the morning and then go into my classes. So I like to talk to people as I’m doing that. And that earlier start allows me to really have more time in the evening slash afternoons to attend my classes as well as do my homework. So I guess that’s more of the professional side how I’m able to balance that. I’m really grateful for the industry because just having that earlier time allows me to allow more time in the afternoon. And once again, it’s just tying in social there. So I talk to my coworkers. I talk to my bosses, I talk to everybody else to see how can I make my solution better? And how can I better myself? So I guess that’s more of a professional side, how I’m able to balance that, to see…how can I make my solution better and how can I better myself as I’m doing this? How can I present the solution in a very clear and a very effective manner? And in terms of academics, Jimena did say this previously, but I like to do a lot of my work outside of school hours. So I guess after 5:00 pm every day is kind of when I start to do it. So anywhere from 5:00pm until midnight, I’ll be doing homework. And then I also dedicate my Saturdays and Sundays in full just to do homework. So really just performing my assignments there, getting them out of the way so that way I can just submit them during the week opens up a lot of time to also be a mentor for First-Gen [Scholars] and really just talk with a lot of people because then “I finished my homework, but what if there’s someone else that didn’t?” Let’s help them out. And that also ties in the social aspect. Let’s help them out. Let’s see what they have. Oh, okay. They have a solution that I struggled with. Did I make any errors? Did I do anything wrong? And so it kind of just everything goes hand in hand with each other. Luckily, I’m just really blessed that all the timings happen to work out this semester and I’m able to just put everything hand in hand and hand in hand. And I don’t, I guess, lack in any category. 

Lux: That’s incredible. So you’re at work at 5 a.m.? 

Leonardo: Yes. 

Lux: Wow. And then, so you have more than a 12-hour day with work and school combined. Well, I am glad to see that you’ve got a lot of energy because I certainly…

Jimena: No, I would need coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee to get me through the day. 

Lux: That’s what I’ve done during college too. I was just like, got to motor through this with coffee and sugary treats. But do you feel…so you kind of touched on this earlier, but I think asking it more explicitly and focusing exclusively on this is kind of a different question. But I’m wondering, how do you feel that being first-gen status impacted your choice of major or your career path, or if it didn’t impact it? Like I said, you mentioned this a bit earlier, so if it feels redundant, I apologize. 

Leonardo: Oh, I’m good. So at first, I guess, picking this major was, like I said, a little bit intimidating, a little bit overwhelming just because there’s classes of, for example, my freshman year, I think I had a class of almost 100, but there was only five kids in that class that looked like me, that had the same color of skin, that talked the same way, that had the same background as me. So it kind of just felt a little intimidating, a little lonely. But then as soon as I got introduced into SHPE and got introduced into all these different societies and learned about everybody’s story, I found that being first-gen in my major made me more confident. The fact that not everybody has the same story as me. I can stand up straight. I can really hold myself tall because a lot of these people are gonna say their fathers, their parents, they have people that they know that work in that company. But for me, I’d go in there and say, “Hey, I have nothing to lose. I’m just gonna go full out.” So I guess over time, as soon as I finished my second year, started my second year, going on to my third year, I found that being first-gen made me more confident in being in my area. Since, once again, not a lot of people share these stories, so it’s our turn to, I guess, flip the status quo. 

Lux: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so often it feels like…well, for a lot of reasons, it feels like the institution has the control over what it means to be first-gen, right? Like there are all of these different definitions for it. I wanna say last time I checked, I found eight different, distinctly different definitions for what it is to be categorized as first-gen. But at the same time, like I think a lot of…there’s a lot of disservice happening by applying this label as a facet of identity if it collapses other facets of identity, you know? So a lot of times in the literature, we see folks conflate the term first-generation with low-income, right? Or they assume, “Well, if you’re first-gen, then you’re a person of color.” So I’m wondering what your thoughts about that category or that label being applied as a designation, like there even being a status. Like I know it is a source of pride too, and it can be kind of complicated. 

Leonardo: Well, yeah, I guess for me, first-gen doesn’t really have, I guess, a category of one-size-fits all, quote unquote. Everybody can be first-gen. Just like you said, there’s so many definitions, there’s so many things, like this person–their parents may have a college degree, but they’re from a different country, “Oh, now the first-gen.” People have parents from different countries who don’t have a degree, “Well, they’re first-gen.” Their parents can be from the same country and don’t have a degree, they’re first-gen as well. So it’s kind of just, I don’t know. I don’t really see it as you have to be a specific way to be a first-gen. Everybody that runs into any of those categories is first-gen, and we’re still all kind of the same community. And it doesn’t matter that we may not look the same, we may not act the same, talk the same, understand the same things, if we have, I guess…if we fall under one of those categories, we are all united as one. We are all for the same purpose, for the same mission, to just pursue through whatever we want and continue the empowerment of first-gen and using that as more of a, I guess, the bonding character rather than a separator. Okay, this person’s first-gen, their background is different than me, but they’re first-gen. Let’s see what they do. Let’s see what we can talk through. Let’s see, what have they done that I can do as well? What have I done that I can teach them as well? It was kind of just…we’re all under the same title. It’s something that unites us all rather than breaks us apart. 

Lux: Yeah, and you get to recognize all of the distinct identities that coincide with being first-gen. Cause I mean, that’s one component of a much larger canvas, right? So I’ve been asking students this also kind of impromptu so apologies in advance. I didn’t warn you about this question, but I’m wondering if you’ve had any faculty members who have been like, “Hey, I’m first-gen, and I want you all to know about these resources or these services or come to me for support.” Have you had any experiences like that?

Leonardo: Yeah, outside of my major, there have been a lot of classes…Just cause within the major, there’s so many students, so many different backgrounds that it’s kind of hard to keep up with everybody. But I guess one shout out I have in general is to the LEAP program. They were particularly like that for me. Dr. V[eeraghanta] was my professor during that time. And she really was just like, “Hey, there’s this going on, there’s this going on. These people are talking, there’s this lecture happening. There’s all this going on. I need you to go to these so you can learn more.” And it was, I guess Dr. V was just a huge support in that fact, just that having a faculty member saying that to you and recognizing that you’re a first-gen and offering these, I guess, different–how do we say that?–different opportunities for you to learn. That really does change everything. Cause going through high school, going through all that, once again, it’s the same case. There’s so many kids…for just a small group of teachers. They can’t really focus a lot on one-on-one…and say [things] like, “Hey, here’s all these resources,” and they can’t really be really specific. Everything’s kind of general. So just coming to the U, having Dr. V be that for me and mentioning all these specific opportunities that will help me, I guess was a changing factor between me switching out of engineering and staying within engineering. 

Lux: Yeah, she’s incredible. I love Dr. V. She is so incredible. And like, yeah, first-gen herself. So she definitely understands a lot of the complexities, right? I knew I knew you from somewhere! I knew I did. It’s like, this name is so familiar. I’m the librarian with Dr. V’s classes so that’s where we’re…that’s kind of our common thread here. Yeah, I’m so glad to hear that she’s been supportive and offering these different services, perspectives, even just being, being like a real person outside of the bureaucracy or outside of like, “I have this title and you have this role, this prescribed relationship with power dynamics and stuff.” Like she just levels all that. It’s great. Let’s see. So changing directions a little bit. Do you feel like being first-gen status has impacted your ability to pay tuition or to get financial aid? 

Leonardo: That one’s kind of, I guess, a little bit of a tricky story. Me and my brother were the first in my whole family, entire family to ever go to college. My brother, when he first got admitted, didn’t receive any financial aid from FAFSA, just a scholarship from the U. And then two years later, I graduated high school and I applied to the U. We filed for FAFSA. We send the documentation to the U. And they say, “Hey, you have an older brother that’s attending. Now we’re gonna give you financial aid from the state.” So going forward, me and him both got financial aid, and he recently just graduated. So it kind of, I’m now on the flip side of my brother. He graduated. I’m the only sibling here. Now my financial aid is kind of revoked. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s my first-gen status that is disabling my opportunity because I didn’t receive financial aid.

And I feel like that’s something, I guess, a lot of people would receive. A lot of people did tell me just file for it. You never know what you’re gonna get. But I filed for it and just didn’t receive anything at all. They even told me on the governmental website, like, ‘Hey, you don’t qualify at all.” So I wouldn’t say necessarily it’s my title that affects anything. It was just more of everything going on with the world, and how everything lined up, and, I guess, the timeline…that I just happened to draw the short end of the straw.

Lux: That’s gotta be so frustrating and incredibly stressful. Let’s see. Okay, sorry. I’m looking through my questions here. And feel free to jump in at any time, Jimena, if you have follow-ups or anything. 

Jimena: Yeah, of course. 

Lux: Do you feel that, through the lens of your first-gen status, do you feel that that had an impact on your social or your emotional wellbeing at the university? 

Leonardo: Yeah, I would say so. Honestly, starting, I guess, socially, I yearned for that common experience. Because once again, you go to high school, you go to all these things and everybody’s there. So you get to meet this diverse background. And going into college, it’s a little different because not everybody from your high school is gonna transfer over to the college. And so going from…I had so many people that had the same story as me, same shared relevant or shared stories with me, to go into this environment where there’s a lot of, I guess, differences that I’m not used to. I guess I was just yearning for that common ground somewhere, even if it was just, “Hey, we shared the same hobby,” then I would have just yearned for that. But at first, I think that kind of just made me a lot more intimidated just because there weren’t a lot of people with that shared background as I was used to in the past. And I guess emotionally, ah, how do I explain it? I guess it really did affect me in the beginning, even going on until now. There’d be a lot of times when I’d go to my parents and I’d tell them I can’t do this anymore.There’s a lot of times when I was just ready to quit, ready to throw in the towel and go into, I guess, someplace where I felt a little more comfortable being me. So that was a lot of conversation. I guess one thing that happened to me last year is I almost did end up dropping out. All in all, it was just a battle that I was facing, like I can’t do this. There’s not enough people that I can talk to, rely on, and get their story from. I got lost and I was like, what do I do? I don’t know who to go to. I don’t really have a route to, I guess, a life. And it just hit a wall where I was just like, the only solution I have is to leave. I can’t do this anymore. Engineering isn’t for me, and I don’t think I wanna do it anymore. And to be honest, I didn’t have a backup plan in terms of another degree. So all in all, I was just gonna drop out and start working in the workforce, just like my dad had done, my mom had done, because those are the stories that I’m used to. So yeah, definitely I’d say being first gen and just finding those common grounds,those common titles, those people that are going through the struggle with you really did impact me more emotionally than it did, I guess, socially. 

Lux: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. One of the big campaigns on campus, and I’m sure you’ve seen some of the banners or signage about it, but we have this You Belong campaign, because as we know, feeling a sense of belonging has a pretty important role in academic success and emotional wellbeing, and so many different aspects of life. And at the same time, while the university is really vocal about wanting to create the sense of belonging, we have a pretty homogeneous campus, which is like an understatement of the year, right? Looking at the demographics, I think it was 2023, if I remember right, but I wanna say that somewhere around 90% of our faculty identify as white only. And I wanna say, I’ll have to look at my numbers again, but I wanna say it’s about 80% for students. So we don’t see a variety of life experiences with our faculty, and the dominant culture in this state is historically and predominantly white also. But I guess I’m wondering what your experience is like in that context with feeling a sense of belonging on campus. And like you mentioned earlier, you said that there were very few students of color in your engineering classes when you first started and that it was quite jarring. 

Leonardo: Yeah, no, it’s definitely still something very scary today, especially since all the classes are getting smaller and smaller. I have a couple of friends that I have every class with, so it kind of just eases the mind a little bit. But once again, just going with those professors, everybody just kind of being on the same thing and then there’s not really a bunch of different stories, just makes it once again, a little tricky to reach out to them. Because you see the students that have the same background as the professors and they’re going up and talking with them and making those relationships. But for me, it goes, I don’t know what to talk about. Are we the same? Can I talk about the same things, or is there something different that I’m missing? Can I just, I guess, a moment of–how do I say this? I guess in qualifications in a sense…do I have the qualifications to even reach out to my professor for help? Or is it gonna be that, oh, they’re gonna tell me the same thing and I’m not gonna get as much help kind of in a sense. So even now, it’s still kind of scary just having those classes of 40 students, but only maybe like six first-gens or six people from different diverse backgrounds just kind of…it’s still just a scary moment that happens now and will probably continue to happen until I graduate. 

Lux: Yeah. So you’re gonna be doing graduate school then as an engineer, yeah? Like a certified electrical engineering major? 

Leonardo: I’m evaluating currently. If Jimena somehow convinces me to go into academia, I’ll probably pursue [it].

Jimena: I don’t know why I have them all convinced. I think it’s very special the way I see you interacting with students and obviously maybe it feels different for you, but as an outsider looking at you doing this, I just think you’re such a kind person. And I don’t know, I think you would be a great professor, like maybe doing it on the side. Again, like Lux said earlier, no pressure, but I think a lot of…especially because engineering is hard, let’s be real.So like having professors that can relate to that small small group of incoming students, I think would be great. And I think you’re just an overall like great person. So, you know, just consider it something like a side gig. 

Lux: Like dream big, you know? Like you’re doing so much. It’s incredible. So I think that everybody values a professor who is compassionate and who’s willing to be on the same level as you and like not…I’m sure that all of us have experienced super out of touch professors who are just like–I don’t know–like kind of insulated from the rest of the world and not so generous. But like I’ve also seen you in LEAP classes being very generous with your time and helping folks sort through issues that they’re having or questions, even if it’s outside of the context of that course. I do think that’s a really unique set of skills that not a lot of folks have.

Jimena: I would agree. 

Leonardo: Thank you, thank you. 

Lux: This one’s kind of a speculative question. So this is like a…for lack of a better term, if you had a pipe dream about like what services or resources or programming or anything that would have been useful to you either…I know we have a lot of services for first-year students, but I guess especially like your second year when you were considering dropping out through now, like what sort of, what would have been useful for you in those moments?

Leonardo: Yeah. I guess a lot of things that I didn’t know on campus were that we have, I guess, counselors/therapists that we have here on campus that are available to students. Honestly, if I knew about that resource probably earlier on and had that communication with them, cause I didn’t know that they were a thing and they were housed literally in the union where I spend 90% of my time. That would have been so much more useful. The fact that these resources were there, they were just never really, I guess, on full point advertised, on full point marketed, like repetitively marketed, marketed, marketed. So that way they can be like, “Oh, okay, I know where they are, I know what to do.” I guess that was probably the one thing I would have requested more in the past, just more marketing regarding different resources. And once again, I just yesterday found out where the Financial Wellness Center was. I didn’t know where they were until yesterday. Or any of the tutoring centers, like my first semester here, my mom literally did research cause she saw me struggling in my math class and she found the math tutoring center. I didn’t even know where that was or if that wasn’t even a thing. And that tutoring was free here on the campus. Like it’s just more repetitive marketing, repetitive advertising, regarding a lot more of these resources would have been very, very helpful starting out and even going into my second year. And even now, I mean, there’s still a lot of things that I don’t know and still learning about. 

Lux: Yeah, I think that a lot of the time, in talking with other first-gen students and just students like continuing-generation, it seems that if students learn about resources, it’s most often from their peers or from their professors. Otherwise you kind of have to know about the existence of those resources to be aware of [and find] their marketing. So it is really challenging on a campus our size to be like, “I don’t know where to go for this. Does that service even exist?” So having more impactful, visible marketing so folks know like, “Hey, we have a financial wellness center. Hey, we have a career services center. We have a food pantry. We have the writing center.” Like all of these different things that, yeah, are not really adequately advertised. I even see that with resources at the library. Many folks don’t know that you can borrow laptops and things like that. So yeah, it’s one of those ongoing challenges. It’s really tricky to find what…cause, like I think you said earlier–you don’t know what you don’t know. So it’s really, really hard to navigate, but it sure seems like you have very successfully navigated these large complex systems like financial aid and academic advising and all of these different services that are not the easiest to sort out or they’re definitely not intuitive, right? So kind of looking back retrospectively from where you sit as a third-year student right now, what do you feel most proud of yourself for, for having accomplished in the past three years?

Leonardo: Yeah, I kind of guess this ties in with the First-Gen [Scholars] class. I think it was the second week, the second time we had class, we had to write a statement that states, “I am first-gen, and I am…” and then it goes blank and you write what you write. One thing, or the thing that I wrote is that “I am first-gen, and I’m a fighter.” And then I sat down and the leader was like, “Are you going to explain it?” I didn’t realize how to explain it, too. But just a lot of the things that happen now have just been pure brute force, just pure fight through it, fight through it, fight through it. My parents didn’t come to this country for nothing. That’s kind of just the thing that raises through my mind that just loops and loops and loops and that keeps me going, going, going. So I guess the whole fighting mentality that I’ve maintained throughout my three years is something that I’ve been really proud of. I have served two internships now as a mechanical engineer during my freshman summer and during my sophomore summer. The freshman summer, I went through like six months of just applications, interviews. I went through 40 different applications, 16 interviews, 39 rejections, until I even got one offer. And so it was just a lot of fighting…time-consuming, a lot of preparation and being in my second semester, still managing my classes, still trying to figure out the U. That was honestly probably the harder part, just maintaining time to be a professional while also being a student as well. So just, I guess that fighting mentality that I maintain is just brute force, brute force, brute force. Even if I sleep two hours, I’m up, drive to campus, I’m here on campus, and I have the same amount of energy I have right now. So I guess, yeah, that’s probably the thing that I’m proud of most for my three years.

Lux: Well, hell yeah. I am also proud of you for that. It’s incredible to maintain that for years at that pace, that is so much work. So yeah, hell yeah, good for you. 

Jimena: Yeah, literally all power to you. 

Lux: Yeah, I love that. So to wrap up a little bit, unless…Jimena, do you have any questions you wanna throw in?

Jimena: No, I’m okay. 

Lux: Okay, cool. So I was wondering if you had any advice for either high school students who are just kind of thinking about, “Do I wanna go to college?” Or even current first-gen students who are just starting out? 

Leonardo: Yeah, I guess the advice that I’d like to tell people that I don’t follow sometimes, or at least I didn’t follow in the beginning is definitely do your research and definitely plan out everything in advance. Even if you don’t know if you’re gonna do it, find something that relates to it and that way you can get a jump in. So say, okay, let’s say that there’s a workshop or a class that is run by the business school. You’re not sure about business, but that’s one of your options. Just send it, just go in there and see what it is. If you liked it, you liked it. And if you didn’t, then you’ve got the experience and you say, “Okay, now I don’t like that.” And now you’ve eliminated whatever options you have left. So I guess the best advice I have is just full send everything. If you’re unsure, just do it. If there’s an event that you’re not sure you wanna go to, go to it and see how it goes. If there’s a program you’re unsure of, find an event that relates to it and go to it. Always just ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. And honestly, once you just full send it, it feels so much better in the end because then you either have clarity or now you have the choice that you want. So that’s probably what I’d say. 

Lux: Yeah, you learn something either way about yourself really. So that makes a lot of sense. Valid. I think that’s about it unless there’s anything you’d like to add. 

Leonardo: No, I think that’s probably it. I just wanna say thank you guys so much for taking the time to do this. And thank you, Jimena,for telling me about this opportunity, for inviting me and for letting me speak about this. 

Jimena: Of course!

Lux: Yeah, thank you for talking with us! I feel, I know it’s a really vulnerable position to be in to share your personal story and to talk about those times where you have felt real struggle or dealt with loneliness and alienation. All of that is so real and so valid, and it’s still really hard to talk about. So I just feel super honored that you shared your story with us. And I know that the other students are gonna find a lot of important, useful information about what it’s like to be first-gen and how to get through it.

Leonardo: Thank you so much. 

Lux: Yeah. Thank you.