Freshman Jennifer Rodriguez is the first in her family to attend college. A full-time student, she juggles baby-sitting her three younger siblings, working part time in the science lab and commuting from her East L.A. home to LMU.
Tom Hynes ’59, a retired aerospace and medical devices engineer, looks at a student like Rodriguez and sees himself 50 years ago.
He too felt isolated and lost when starting at LMU. “I wasn’t ready for college, the classes were very difficult and I couldn’t afford to live on campus, so I commuted. It was hard to tackle my studies,” Hynes said.
This past summer, Hynes, and his wife, Marlene, underwrote a program called ACCESS – A Community Committed to Excellence of Science and Engineering – with the intention of making it easier for students like Rodriguez to succeed.
ACCESS invites 18 incoming LMU freshmen to campus for an intense, three-week summer residential program. The all-expenses-paid program is designed to help them transition better when faced with the demands of an LMU education.
“I would have been totally lost if I hadn’t gone to this program. I wouldn’t know where to go for help, I wouldn’t have friends to study with and I don’t think I would be doing very well in college,” said Rodriguez. “I was scared about coming to a university. I knew it was going to be tough because I am studying civil engineering.”
Ed Mosteig, the director of the program, said he selected a geographically, ethnically and socio-economically diverse group of students, that was also gender-balanced, to participate in the program. They meet every Friday. In early sessions, the students worked in small groups to develop written and oral communication skills in the sciences. On the first day, Mosteig said, “I could hear them from all the way down the hall, laughing and acting like they had known each other for 10 years. I was delighted by how well they bonded.”
The group was so valuable, ACCESS members formed study groups that continue to help them succeed in the classroom today – just as Hynes had hoped.
“When classes started, these students hit the ground running. They were not nervous or timid. They were comfortable with their peers and confident in themselves,” Mosteig said.
Thanks to the ACCESS program, Rodriguez was excited on her first day at LMU instead of scared. “I thought, ‘I am ready for this – I can do it. I am not alone.’” And she is doing it — just last week she earned high marks on her chemistry and engineering exams.