LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The pandemic threw a wrench in learning for a lot of students, and it was no exception for eighth grader Briana Garcia.
“I miss seeing my friends and seeing the teachers and just socializing with people,” she said.
But Briana said despite the changes like adapting to virtual learning, she didn’t let the pandemic stop her from chasing her dreams.
“I hope to go into Harvard or into Berkeley, and I hope to become a lawyer,” she said.
To help her stay focused on those goals, she spent the past year connecting with female mentors, working professionals who she normally wouldn’t come in contact with, through a nonprofit called MOSTe, or Motivating Our Students Through Experience. They empower underserved young girls in Los Angeles County to attend college.
Briana learned all about applying to schools and picked up some valuable life skills.
“Counting our money and how we are going to be able to save and how we can help our parents by saving our money,” she said.
Briana said she is planning to work in the future so she can save up for college and help out her parents. Her father is a landscaper, and her mother cleans houses. It’s learning things like budgeting and time management where mentors can provide a lot of value, according to Amy Ludwig, the executive director of MOSTe.
“Just to be another person sounding board, somebody who isn’t in their family, someone who isn’t in their immediate circle,” Ludwig said. “Someone with a different set of experiences.”
Six schools participate in the program, and 265 students, as young as seventh grade, have gone through the program, with 100% attending college after high school. The nonprofit’s president Christine McKay said that if she had mentors as a teen, her life might have taken a different path after high school.
“I was an honor student. I had done all these amazing things, and people thought great things were going to happen for me,” she said. “And a year and a half later, I’m pregnant and living in the back of my car.”
McKay shares her struggles and triumphs with mentees to show them to never stop dreaming big, especially in her case, having risen from homelessness and poverty to earn a master’s degree from Harvard.
“Some students may be like me who come out of high school and have these really promising careers ahead of them and one mistake, and it appears to derail, right?” she said. “We don’t want to lose sight of the fact that life happens to everybody.”
Briana meets with her mentor twice a month and said that seeing what women can do with their lives inspires her. In fact, she knows she wants to focus on immigration issues as a lawyer.
“My parents, they immigrated here, and I would like to focus more on that and see what they have gone through,” she said.
As she embarks on another year of school during the pandemic, she’s not going to let anything steer her from those dreams.