Melanie Adams '13
Materials Science and Engineering

I grew up in Brooklyn, NY in a community very representative of the West Indian upbringing my parents received. At an early age, the importance of doing well in school was stressed because my parents weren’t given the same opportunities in the countries they came from. I was encouraged to try any and everything that sparked my interest which eventually led me to MIT. I am currently a junior in Course 3 and I hope to pursue a career in biomaterials.

Diego Giraldez '15
Chemical Engineering

I was born in Lima, Peru, where I was raised in a modest home until I was about ten years old. In 2001, my family and I moved to New Jersey. No one in family knew any English and both my parents took working class jobs while my older brother and I attend school. Growing up, my parents inculcated the importance of a good education. Therefore, I applied to and attended the Marine Academy of Science and Technology, a magnet school in New Jersey that offered better opportunities in science and mathematics – a pivotal step in my pursuit for a higher education. While I loved my high school, it was lacking in terms of diversity, both ethnic and economic. However, upon arriving at MIT, I noticed that students did not see the color of one’s skin or the contents of one’s wallet. Instead, one is respected for one’s achievements, both academic and extracurricular, and of course by the fact that one has earned a spot at MIT, just as equally as all of the students here.
Currently, I plan to major in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Energy Studies. During my time here, I hope to research clean energy alternatives and methods to raise the efficiency of our manufacturing processes. After graduating, I hope to enter into the energy industry, applying my education and research background to real world solutions. Around campus, I am a member of the Sport Tae Kwon Do Team, Phi Delta Theta, La Union Chican por Aztlan, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Ultimately, MIT’s commitment to diversity and its wonderful student body have inspired me to always strive for equality and mutual respect wherever I may go in life.

Luis Juarez '13
Biological Engineering

I was raised in the small village of Valtierrilla, Guanajuato, Mexico for about ten years. My family then moved permanently to Houston, TX in 2001 because my parents wanted my brother and me to have a future by excelling in academics. We faced all the normal cultural challenges such as language, less family oriented style of life, different foods, and mentality that everyone may succeed. It was hard adjusting to this new culture, but it was a good challenge because it helped our family become even closer. Nowadays if one person is sick, or has failed at something, the rest of the family suffers as well. The reverse also holds for when a person succeeds. My mom’s saying, “if you are going to do something, do it well or don’t do it at all” still rings very strongly inside of me. Going to church on Sundays also kept our family close. I was raised Roman Catholic, and up to this day I continue to attend Mass on Sundays even though I do not live with my family any longer. I am a course 20 (BE) Junior here at MIT. I play soccer for the MIT Men’s Varsity Soccer team. I enjoy doing biomedical research relating to the heart. I lead a Bible Study on Sundays and help out in Mass as a Eucharistic Minister. One of my hobbies is being a DJ because of my love for sound and music.

Andy Liang '14
Chemistry and Brain & Cognitive Sciences

I immigrated from Guangzhou, China at a very young age. My parents were raised with a middle-school education, and worked together selling weights used for scales. Up to this day my parents still rely on me to speak English for them. This put a heavy burden on me at a very young age. But I love them. If it weren't for their deciding to come to the US and putting me through an American education system, I would not be in MIT today. What they lacked made me stronger. Here they owned a small furniture store, where they often needed me to mediate discussions. Everything I say to people shows not for me, but for us; so I stressed learning the English language well. Today I am an editor in MIT's newspaper, The Tech, where I constantly mediate the discussions that goes on around MIT.

I believe that it was the strengths, not the weaknesses, of being a First-Generation, that has propelled me to be able to overcome my obstacles. My biggest obstacle: learning English. After that, everything else is a piece of cake.

Peter Nguyen '14
Molecular Biology and Computer Science

I was born and raised in Southern California. Both my parents came over from Vietnam in 1992 and knew very limited English. My father is a manager of an embroidery company and my mother is a cashier at a local supermarket. Growing up, I was primarily a student-athlete, participating in swimming and basketball. I am now a member of the gymnastics team. I think the most important lesson I have learned from my experiences is that success is a natural byproduct of practice, hard work, and determination. I am currently a liaison for the Quest Scholars Network and am dedicated to providing opportunities for higher education to hard-working low-income students in America.

Francisco Xavier Pena '15
Brain and Cognitive Sciences

Born and raised only a ten-minute drive from the Mexican border, I came from a family of modest expectations. My parents immigrated to Texas to raise a family where they knew their children would have a better future. My two older sisters went to a local university so it was expected that my twin and I go there too, but somehow, out of nowhere, I rocketed off to MIT. Most of the time I can't really talk to either of my parents about college life since they didn't experience it. Not that many people want to talk about inflationary cosmology anyway but the idea of a fraternity was very new to them. I talk to my sisters about it, though, and we're still very close. From my culture I've brought my love of cumbia and am trying to integrate it into the MIT Casino Rueda club. I will be the first in my family to go to graduate school, becoming a research professor in theoretical physics. I feel that there are a lot of people in life that lead us in the right direction besides our parents, which is why I am in two mentoring programs: I volunteer at a tutoring program for disadvantaged high school students (Upward Bound) and I serve on the board for a summer enrichment program for underserved middle school students (Innoworks).

John Winston Belcher
MIT Physics Professor

I was born in Louisiana, but brought up mostly in West Texas. When I was growing up, my father was a “roughneck” in the West Texas oilfields. My Dad just finished the 7th grade. Both he and my mother came from large farming families. I was really shy and spent most of my formative years buried in the Ector County Public Library in Odessa, Texas. There were no books at home (other than the Bible) so the library is where I came into contact with a lot of the ideas that formed my world view.

I had no idea what I was doing when I applied to college. I applied to exactly one school, Rice University in Houston. If I had not gotten in there my plan was to go to the local junior college. The first term at Rice was really rough; my high school did not offer calculus so I was competing in a freshmen calculus course with students who had already had calculus.

Also, the summer after I graduated from high school was the “Freedom Rider” summer, and in the Fall of my freshmen year at Rice I took part in the first large civil rights demonstration in Houston (we picketed a meeting of the National School Boards Association). I am not sure whether I was more scared of the Houston police or of my father if he had found out what I was doing.

My Dad was extremely conservative politically, so early on we just stopped talking about politics or about race, or just about anything else for that matter. After Rice I went off to CalTech for graduate school, and after CalTech I got a postdoctoral position at MIT and then a faculty position. Herb Bridge was on the faculty and was my mentor in terms of getting through the tenure process at MIT. I would never have made it here without his guidance and support.

Just after I came to MIT, the Space Plasma Group wrote a proposal for the Voyager mission to the outer planets. After reaching the four outer planets, Voyager is still going strong, and is now the Voyager Interstellar Mission. Within the next ten years, it is probable that the MIT plasma instrument on Voyager 2 will make measurements in the interstellar medium. That is a long way from Earth, and a really long way from the West Texas oilfields where I started out.

I have two sons who grew up in Lexington. When they applied to college it was to about eight places apiece. And they have perfect teeth, unlike me. I have no idea what it was like for them growing up. I mean I know the circumstances, I just can’t relate emotionally to growing up in a affluent suburb outside of Boston. But they have done well, and we actually agree about politics and race.

It is sad that my Dad and Mom did so much to enable me to go to college, but that me going to college ended up putting so much distance between us in terms of the way we viewed the world, when they were still alive.

If it is one thing that was important in my life besides my parent’s support, it was the public library in Odessa. Libraries are a wonderfully democratizing and equalizing institution. The one place I always feel at home is in a library, whether it is in Newton or in Odessa.

Shamarah Hernandez '12
Economics

I’m from central Florida, about an hour from Disney World. I was raised with an understanding that education was going to be a big part of my future. Mom and Dad grew up in Jamaica and Trinidad, respectively, and neither of them, nor their parents, nor their parents’ parents, etc. went to college for a Bachelor’s. At some point before I was born, they decided I would be the first. I grew up with the expectation that my future wouldn’t be like my parents’ past. My mother made learning really fun, and she told me that particular kind of fun was the kind that would make my life easier down the road in terms of independence, empowerment, and financial freedom. So, I went all in. We didn’t know exactly what, but my family and I knew that my goal was to something big, something special with this whole school thing.

I remember my guidance counselor telling me that we’d be getting junk mail from a bunch of colleges, and she warned us not to put too much stock in it. “Like if you get a letter from MIT, for example,” she said. Everyone laughed, including me. When I actually got one, though, it kind of scared me. The first thought I had was, “what if I actually got in? No one would even believe it.”

I remember telling my parents about the “Reach, Match, Safety” school model that we learned about in school, which would help us organize our school applications. When I described MIT as my Reach, Dad interrupted me and asked, “Why are you putting your dream school out of ‘reach’? If you want to go there, and God wants you to go there, you’ll go there. End of story.” This was five years ago.

Now? (There are times when I still can’t believe it, but) I can actually say that I went there. Me! I’m a young woman who once laughed at the idea of being on MIT’s radar, who felt silly even thinking about applying for admission. Those seeds planted way back in 2008, in 2000, in 1989 when I was still in Mom’s belly, and when God was still creating the heavens and Earth … they have grown and produced fruit. Fast forward to June 2012: I was the sole Black woman to graduate with a degree in my field that year. The gratitude, the tears, the elation and the knowledge that I am blessed beyond belief – these are the things that I carry with me everyday after my chapter as an undergraduate at the Institute. But what makes me the proudest is that while I was the first in my family to graduate from college, I can proudly say that I am not the last: after seeing me walk across that stage, my father built on his 2-year degree and is now the proud recipient of a Bachelor’s!

Shamarah is now living in Washington, DC and working as a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. She builds predictive models for clients in the defense sector.

Alban Cobi '12
Mechanical Engineering

I was born in Albania in a small village of about 50 just as the Cold War ended. I knew nothing about the war or politics though because I was really young at the time. My grandparents grew up as farmers but my parents had more "professional" jobs. My dad was an officer in the army and my mom a nurse in the nearby city. At the age of about 2, my parents decided to move to Greece because the economy in Greece at the time was way better than it was in Albania. When they moved to Greece they left me in Albania with my grandparents. The crazy part is that I have no recollection of this time in history or these events, but every time I look at the few black and white pictures we have from my childhood in Albania life seems so different there.

A few years later after my parents made some money and got stable jobs in Greece they decided to convince my grandparents to move to Greece with them. After moving to Greece I attended 1st and half of 2nd grade, and then my parents along with my uncles and aunts from my mom's side decided to make the bold move and move to America where there was opportunity for their children to grow up and do something great. As I learned later on in life, I had a great grandfather who migrated to America in the 20s, and left his wife and children behind to make extra money. He then earned his citizenship and moved back to Albania to raise his kids. If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't be here now.

My childhood memory only goes as far back as the 2nd grade here in America. I went to a bilingual elementary school, the Ohrenberger here in Boston and then attended the Washington Irving Middle School in Roslindale, MA. After taking an entrance exam, I got into the John D. O'Bryant School for Math and Science in Roxbury, Massachusetts. High School is what shaped my interests and what really helped me get into MIT. When I was a junior in high school the Science Director came to me and a fellow student Bruno and asked if we'd be interested in building robots. Both of us, knowing nothing about robots but interested in learning about them, enthusiastically replied with a "yes" and later found out he was referring to FIRST Robotics. After spending a year in the FIRST Robotics team and meeting Ed Moriarty, who works in Outreach for MIT's Edgerton Center, we learned about MIT and that it was the "best engineering school in the world".

You can guess what happened from there. We both got in, and now we're both here studying Course 2. To be very honest, only recently have I realized how great it is to have the background we as first generation students do. Every time I tell my story to someone it makes them feel like they don't even have a story. The FGP has really helped in me being proud of my history, and has made me realize that a lot, or should I say ALL of the things I've gone through as a first generation student, someone else here at MIT has gone through them as well.

Anna Babbi Klein
Communications Manager,
Office of the Dean for Undergraduate Education

I was brought up in Buffalo, NY, in a very traditional household where Italian was our primary language. My parents immigrated from Italy in their late 20′s and while they adjusted to America they never truly adopted American ways. What was important at our house was doing your best, being respectful, and food. Dad was king and women were certainly not considered equal to men. My sister and I both did very well in high school and found our way to college with no real guidance. My mother, in particular, was distraught when we both went away to college and then devastated when we did not move back home afterwards. Doing well in college was my way of saying to my parents “See, I may not be home, but you can be proud of me.” I went on to earn two master's degrees and 25 years later have had a very diverse and satisfying career…but there has always been a pull to be home, take care of my parents, and prove that I do my best.