Future Female Educators Scholarship

As a first-generation, low-income Latina, inequitable circumstances were a reality growing up. At fourteen, I learned to balance school while working twenty hours a week. At seventeen, I navigated college applications without the generational know-how afforded to the children of college graduates. Soon after, I arrived at Stanford, where I committed myself to opening doors for students from backgrounds like mine. Growing up I faced a lot of challenges, but future students might not have to if changes were made to our existing systems. After graduation, a desire to help others access educational opportunities led me to teach in Baltimore. Growing up I learned that hard work, even if that meant working twice as hard, translated into opportunity and success. In Baltimore, I learned that sometimes inequity is so vast that a student’s hard work alone is not enough. My students deserved better, so I organized college tours, offered free SAT prep and college counseling after school, and tried to fill in the gaps my students faced. As I removed barriers for my students, I wondered how all students, not just those in my classroom, could be supported at scale. When I left the classroom, I committed to making every space I touch more equitable. Today, I determine what to spend my time on based on its potential to build an equitable world. I have raised millions of dollars for Khan Academy, an online platform that provides free, educational resources to millions of students every month, coached low-income students through the college application process, and led a giving circle that invests thousands of dollars a year in Latinx led nonprofits educating youth. I have also advocated for the needs of low-income students of color in spaces of privilege I can access. At Khan Academy, this advocacy translated into an organizational wide shift to better serve historically under-resourced students. At UCLA, as the Graduate Student Association's Director of Campus Relations, I spearheaded a project to interview dozens of graduate students, focusing on students from under-resourced backgrounds, to better understand how UCLA can create an environment where all students can thrive. Along the way, I learned a lot about education’s shortcomings, particularly for students from low-income backgrounds like mine, and how I can contribute. Since starting my Ed.D. in the Educational Leadership Program, I have a better understanding of how to address educational inequity. In the future, I hope to lead a team delivering world-class educational technology resources to students and serve on an elected school board where I can drive student outcomes at scale. An Ed.D. at UCLA is a unique opportunity to hone the research and leadership skills that will ensure I can contribute in educational spaces where voices like mine— those of a first-generation college going woman of color from a low-income background—are too often missing. Students from low-income backgrounds deserve as much opportunity as students from more affluent backgrounds, and I am committed to making that a reality.