Why not us?
Why not us?
- June 2, 2015
- Felipe Hernandez, ’13 political science and music performance, on being a first-generation college student
Courtesy of PBS, follow the journeys of four young people—all first in their families
to go to college—as they road-trip across the country to interview inspiring individuals
who were also first in their families to pursue higher education. After gaining wisdom
and guidance from trail-blazing leaders—including Anna Maria Chávez, CEO of Girl Scouts
of the USA, Grammy Award-winner John Legend, and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz—the
Roadtrippers are emboldened to embrace the opportunities ahead and ask “why shouldn't
I succeed?”
View online: http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/0d28df9d-8273-47d8-b6cb-1137479d015f/rtn_whynotus_video/.
Felipe Hernandez was named a Marshall Scholar in 2014. He previously won the Truman
Scholarship and a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship at the University of Ibagué
in Columbia. He is the founder of Mentors Empowering & Nurturing Through Education
(M.E.N.T.E.), a nonprofit organization he created to reach out to low-income, first-generation
high school students and match them with currently enrolled college mentors. The goal
of the organization is to encourage minority youth to enroll in college and follow
their dreams. Hernandez kept in contact with his former mentees while in Colombia,
where he also reached out to provide free English and leadership courses and inspiration
to 65 young people. He has interned at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute
for Congresswoman Linda Sanchez and at the U.S. Department of Education for the White
House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. He is currently participating
in the California Capital Fellows Program in Sacramento.
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