Global Courant 2023-05-22 20:58:05
When William, one of my son’s best friends, told me he wasn’t going to college, my stomach almost hurt. High school classes were over and grades were handed in. His final grade, while not perfect, was very good in science and math.
Why are you dropping out of school? I have asked.
“I’m not very good at school and from now until I graduate with a diploma, it will be a long time, and I have to work now,” he told me. “Besides, I wouldn’t know how to pay for college.”
What if you get a scholarship?
How could I get one? he asked. “You have to be a ‘nerd’ for that, and the truth is I’m not very good at school.”
Two weeks later he came back very happy. He had found a $25 an hour job at one of Inland Empire’s department stores and would be making about $1,000 a week by age 19. With a smile, he told me, “I don’t think even my dad deserves what I’m going to earn now.”
At his age, $52,000 a year may seem like a lot of money. But it isn’t, especially in a state like California where the cost of living has skyrocketed.
Another friend of my kids who graduated from high school with a 3.9 GPA also decided not to continue college.
“My family has no money and I don’t think I can get a scholarship,” he told me at a going-away party my sons threw for him after he decided to join the army and was about to finish his education in Arizona. to start.
What’s wrong with them? I thought. They both would have had a bright future if they had decided to continue their studies, but especially if they had had the motivation, the self-confidence and a role model.
Unfortunately, this is the reality for thousands of Latino students, children of working families, who have had neither the resources nor the information to help their children make better decisions for their future.
“This has to change,” María Fernanda Trochimezuk tells me. She came to the United States in 2000 to continue her studies precisely because she received a scholarship.
María Fernanda Trochimezuk is the founder of the IOScholarships platform.
(IOS Scholarships)
After studying marketing at UC Santa Barbara and being selected nationally to be part of the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative program, Trochimezuk never imagined she would dedicate herself to carving out a path for students interested in careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics by those with access to economic resources and information.
Why help students who are looking for those careers and not others?
“Simply because they are the ones where you can make more money and there are more job opportunities,” she tells me.
In 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and while becoming a mother, Trochimezuk founded an organization called IOScholarships, which aims to help young people like my children’s friends find the necessary scholarships to continue their studies. “Every year there are so many grants that nobody applies for. That’s a shame.”
She is right. The National Scholarships Providers Assn. (IOScholarships is a member of that organization) reports that over the last 10 years the number of scholarships awarded has increased by more than 45%. Yet an estimated $100 million in scholarships go unawarded each year, largely due to a lack of applicants, Forbes reported in November 2021.
A path to follow
Gabriela Forter Cuevas graduated from UCLA and is currently pursuing her postgraduate studies at Stanford and Harvard thanks to the scholarships she has obtained.
(IOS Scholarships)
IOScholarships fulfill several objectives. The first, Trochimezuk said, is to help students learn about these scholarships and internships, and help them get them.
“The next goal is to connect them with other students who have already traveled the path and who can motivate them to continue.”
Trochimezuk used her own savings to create a platform that works through a series of algorithms to match each student with the scholarship that best suits them. She subsequently received funding from Google PowerUp.
Although this tool is relatively new, its success is huge. To date, more than 10,000 students have applied for scholarships through IOScholarships.
“My goal is to have more than a million young people apply for scholarships through this platform and contribute more than $1 billion to the economy with their workforce,” says Trochimezuk, who spent her early years in Buenos Aires . “Since I was a child, my parents told me that I enjoyed networking with my friends. So I will continue to do that.”
She is not an activist fighting against the lack of opportunity or decrying the inequality faced by Latino and other minority students. Instead, she has focused her work on creating a community network of services that students can turn to not only to seek funding for their studies, but also to meet other Latinos who have distinguished themselves and are already working in the field of science and technology.
“I believe in education as the most important tool for social change,” she tells me.
Please open the door
“We need to create role models, we need other successful young Latinos to open the doors for those who come after us. If we don’t help ourselves, no one will,” Trochimezuk said.
Ian Agrela Defreites is studying computer science at the University of Florida.
(IOS Scholarships)
In some places the door seems firmly closed. For example, in Silicon Valley, where the largest number of STEM jobs in the country are concentrated and where the Latino population is nearly 50%, less than 3% of high-tech, high-wage jobs are filled by Latino professionals.
She believes access to well-paid STEM jobs is the best way to break the vicious cycle of poverty. Figures from the US Department of Labor confirm this. While all non-STEM occupations in the United States had an average salary of $40,120 per year in 2021, the median income for STEM occupations was more than double, at $95,420 per year.
According to a Department of Labor report titled “Beyond the Numbers,” IT occupations are expected to be in high demand over the next decade.
The fastest-growing STEM careers paying more than $100,000, according to the financial website Smartassest, are: Physicists ($152,430 average salary); computer and information researchers ($131,490); computer engineers ($128,170); computer network architects ($120,520); actuaries ($105,900); information security analysts ($102,600); and biochemists and biophysicists ($102,270).
Each month, Trochimezuk said, IOScholarships adds new scholarships to its database and also posts a “Scholarship of the Week” to its Instagram (@IOScholarships) network accounts. In addition, the site features a scholarship organizer, news designed to provide application guidance, and money-saving tips. The platform also offers a vocational aptitude quiz designed to help students identify degrees and professions best suited to their abilities and streams a podcast called “Superheroes,” where students from ethnic minorities can hear about the path that other students in similar circumstances have followed.
“GPA isn’t everything,” Trochimezuk said. “One of the most important aspects is the essay that the universities and the scholarship providers ask for. The essay is often more important than the GPA as it shows the perseverance of the person to face and solve the difficulties.”
Josue Gil-Silva, a youth who received a scholarship from the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, agrees.
Alyssa Garbarino, center, was selected to receive a $10,000 surprise wardrobe from the Giving Closet. On the left is Kelsey Alamillo and on the right is IOScholarships founder María Fernanda Trochimezuk. Behind them is stylist Sam Russell, who gave Garbarino the wardrobe to use for job interviews.
(IOS Scholarships)
“What I always recommend to other students is that they write openly, expose the difficulties they have faced and that they strive for the most important scholarships, without fear of failure. The worst that can happen is that they say ‘no’.”
There are many cases where efforts are well rewarded, such as that of Alyssa Garbarino, who studies biology at Cal State Channel Islands and directs the Neuroscience Society. Despite her personal and financial problems, she wants to become a doctor.
Her path is not easy. To support her studies, she works as a babysitter three days a week and conducts research for 10 hours a week as part of a research grant.
She recently went to a job interview and realized she didn’t have the right clothes. Luckily, she was selected by the Giving Closet organization to receive a surprise wardrobe worth over $10,000.
“The only way to move forward is to help each other,” Trochimezuk said. “The reward is in sight.”
