Excerpt from Turning on the Lights: Part II.4.a Self-advocacy (= fight for yourself!)
“Self-advocacy is the opposite of shy!” – MESA Creator
Another MESA Creator understood what it meant to step out of her comfort zone. She was a first-generation Latina college student. She used the learning culture to excel at San Diego City College, and she successfully transferred to San Diego State University (SDSU) in biology. She checked-in with me during Christmas break of her first year at SDSU to report that she was loving her SDSU experience like a MESA Creator. I was very proud of her, and I asked her what difference the learning culture made for her. She replied, “Corner Man, all of the strategies in the learning culture are great, but the thing that made the biggest difference was self‑advocacy. I didn’t have it when I joined MESA. I was very shy. But you challenged me to use self-advocacy, and I did! Self-advocacy is the reason why I was selected for my first summer research program while I was at City College. I kept following up with the program director to see if I was accepted, and the director realized that I really wanted to participate in the program, so I was accepted. Before MESA, I would never think of doing that because I was too shy. That first research experience helped me to get into a second research program before I transferred to SDSU, and this helped me to get into a research lab at SDSU in my first year after transfer. None of this would have happened without self-advocacy!” She was right. Through the learning culture she learned the importance of self-advocacy, and she demonstrated this through her actions.
Maria is an SDSU biology graduate and STEM professional in the health industry!