Stanford Transfer Essays

El Camino Student Trustee, Guardian Scholar, and Mathematical Sciences Representative. But during a simpler time, I was a high-schooler worried about the finances of my family. With my mother’s retirement from Covid-19, came the reality that university would temporarily be out of my family’s reach. Thankfully, I found high-quality and inexpensive education at El Camino College, providing me with opportunities unseen upon first glance.

El Camino’s South Bay Promise covered the majority of my tuition, enabling me to pursue my passion for engineering alongside my interests of history, political science, and business. My ability to explore was enabled by the emphasis on asynchronous courses outside of STEM. I was lucky enough to enroll in the only Aerospace Engineering course at El Camino, but as I scoured the course catalog I realized that El Camino’s Engineering Statics conflicted with my Electricity and Magnetism course. With this scheduling conflict, I looked outside the box to a college one hour away through Los Angeles traffic: Glendale Community College.

The treasure trove of engineering courses made Glendale a staple in my community college journey. Not only did I find that their Statics course would work within my schedule, but their engineering department held courses not offered by El Camino. This revelation led to my registration between five community colleges for the spring semester. Their engineering communities were more developed— however El Camino was my home. Transferring to Stanford’s School of Engineering provides academic opportunities on a single campus, with an involved community of engineering students.

Even though engineering at El Camino’s was limited I found a different community, one rooted in advocacy. During my first year, I was selected to serve on the Mathematical Sciences Division Council. After AB-1705 was initiated, starting all students at calculus, I advocated for expanded calculus support courses. My appreciation for advocacy led to my campaign and election to become the Student Trustee, representing 30,000 students on the Board of Trustees. Trusteeship illuminated the intersection of management, finances, and public policy building upon my aspirations in engineering leadership. The community in advocacy is one I intend to continue, through the Public Service Leadership Program in the technology and engineering sector, to develop social change with my fellow engineers.

The California Community Colleges primarily focus on accessible education, promoting external searches for laboratory experiences. El Camino’s MESA program provides a 100-page handbook of research experiences throughout the country, and using this I applied and was accepted into two laboratory programs at UCLA. One was a Nanofabrication Lab experience, and the other was an internship at the Center for High Frequency Electronics. From fabricating wafers using photolithography, to fixing E3631A power converters, I gained experiences that most community college students wouldn’t. The only drawback was two hours through LA traffic everyday. Stanford provides numerous on-campus experiences including the Student Space Initiative, engineering rockets while researching policies to assist in the aerospace sector. Everywhere on Stanford’s campus lies experiences in engineering beyond the offerings of community college.

The California Community Colleges have provided the foundations to grow and learn at Stanford. They provided me exceptional education, and time for my family to accumulate funding. Stanford offers a balance of managerial and technical coursework in their Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) curriculum which prepares me for a career in engineering policy and leadership. The third area of the department (Organizations, Technology, and Policy) is the one that interests me the most, for its intersection of optimization while advocating for policy to support engineering development. Stanford’s MS&E program, coupled with the engineering student organizations expand and develop the skills and experiences I’ve gained throughout community college.

As an engineering student and advocate, I see Stanford as the opportunity to build on the pillars that shaped my community college experience. At Stanford, I will integrate my skills into a community of advocate engineers and become a leader in the engineering world.

Being a student in AP courses meant my peers’ constant discussion about college. The students I was around never mentioned El Camino, only mentioning universities across the nation. However, I would come to discover El Camino was the right choice for me all along.

Nowhere else could I explore my interests without a fiscal constraint, but I could learn from the sheer diversity of community college. Nowhere else could I be in classes alongside students with a life full of experience to share. And nowhere else could I discover my internal desire to advocate for students who may not feel they have a voice.

For these reasons I would tell myself that, “Focus on El Camino College, and success will follow!”

The most significant challenge is harnessing potential. Someone in the world may have been able to figure out the most complex problems, but the social background they were placed into may have limited their opportunities. Without the proper resources, potential isn’t allowed to prosper and benefit society for all people.

Ever since watching Glory by Edward Zwick, I’ve desired to witness the 54th Massachusetts' assault on Fort Wagner. Their heroism symbolized a massive step forward for America, showcasing the first instance of an African American regiment in combat. But for me, it represents fighting for what’s right against all odds.

Although I’ve aged out of Scouting, I’ve done my best to support Scouting through helping Scouts learn the ropes. This made the compliment from my Scoutmaster meaningful when they said, “You’ve really impacted the Scouts so much in both learning skills and becoming a leader in Scouting!”

1. The People I Trust
2. Lego Collection (Since 2008, built my love for creativity)
3. My Korean Barbeque Grill (The closest I feel to in-touch with my culture)
4. Panera’s Unlimited Sip Club (The best study spot with unlimited drinks)
5. The Scout Oath, Law, Motto, and Slogan (The guidelines of my life)

What began as a box of pieces to distract a 4-year-old, became the hobby I’d carry for the rest of my life. With this random assortment of pieces, came different ones with unique uses in the Lego system. Learning what each one did was critical to effective usage, which took years of experience.

Every Lego piece had a function, and when the company created a new one a learning curve was initiated. The challenge for Lego mastery was invigorating, as I knew understanding the pieces’ use would benefit me down the line. 2016 marked a revolutionary year for Lego, releasing pieces such as the “Modified Brick, 1x2x(1 2/3) with Studs on Side” which allowed for more creativity for sideways building. As Lego evolved, so did my knowledge and expertise of each individual piece I owned.

Legos have showcased the power in learning, because once you learn something you harness its usage to showcase creativity. As a 20-year-old, the culmination of the last 16 years allows me to build the ideas that pop into my mind. I’ve built my house to-scale, and the Iron Golem from Minecraft. Both of which required me to understand the uses of the pieces at my disposal, to make my imagination become reality.

Understanding every single piece of anything, allows me to utilize my creativity to build the route to the goal I have at the end, which is a skill that can be applied to any facet of my life.

Community is the people around you, whether you resonate with them or not. That’s the definition I stand by, brought forth by my term as El Camino’s Student Trustee.

Becoming the Student Trustee meant representing all students, increasing my scope to a larger range of people. Representation began with understanding diverse groups of students, leading me to visit El Camino’s equity centers where formerly incarcerated, immigrant, and veteran students found community. The dozens of pictures on the walls showed how accessible education transforms lives—helping foster friendships and providing opportunities to restart education after a 20-year break. Furthermore, attending The Veteran’s Day Celebration, Transgender Day of Remembrance Ceremony, and West African Dance Meditation workshop furthered my understanding of the community around me.

Understanding El Camino’s community was beneficial when Trusteeship brought me to Capitol Hill. I shared the experiences of El Camino’s diverse student populations during meetings with Representatives Maxine Waters and Ted Lieu. As we discussed the cloudy future of education, I reaffirmed the impacts it has had on students and how critical it is to the communities they represent. Bringing the diverse stories of California community college students to the capitol showcased El Camino for what it provides beyond academics— community for all students regardless of their identities.

Community is the people around me, through all differences between us. Understanding this allowed me to represent them to the best of my abilities, and inspires me to continue learning from the community I’m bound to join at Stanford.

KOFHA04 1109

My entire foster story, encompassed in one manilla folder. I was old enough to receive it, but not mature enough to read it. As my senior year ended, I became courageous enough to explore my past.

The file gave me closure, explaining that my surrender to foster care was meant to give me a chance at life my birth mother couldn’t provide. The “chance” I was provided, became a reminder to put myself out there and take a “chance” on opportunities. Even though I concealed my past, I joined the program for former foster youth: The Guardian Scholars of El Camino College.

The Guardian Scholars was my first step into something at El Camino. Immersing myself in a cohort of similar stories revealed the commonalities and differences between the 26 Guardian Scholars. Although we all share the same distinction as, “former foster youth,” our pathways to higher education are what differentiate us from one another.

When I eventually became the Student Trustee, I made an effort to wear a bright blue ribbon with the pin “Foster Youth Success” to represent former foster youth success. Being the first Student Trustee to come from the foster care system, I ensured that those impacted by the foster care system saw that anything was possible, through taking a “chance.”

Enrolling at Stanford is the first step of university, and the second is filling out Stanford’s Guardian Scholars interest form, to once again join a program dedicated to former foster youth student success.