Edson Mancilla hopes to become a doctor in South Los Angeles where he grew up. Lorena Ramos aims to find a cure to a disease. Roxana Garcia wants to found libraries and schools in Bolivia.
These three 18-year-old college freshmen are well on their way to fulfilling their dreams, thanks to the boost from a $20,000 scholarship awarded by the Alliance/Merck Ciencia Hispanic Scholars Program.
“It had a pretty big impact,” says Ramos, who is majoring in biology at California Lutheran University. “This made it easier for me to actually pick where I wanted to go.”
The scholars program, which is sponsored by the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, the Merck Company Foundation and the Merck Institute for Science Education, aims to help Hispanic students pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
Now heading into its second year, the program awards scholarships of $5,000 for each of four years to 10 high school seniors from Los Angeles, Elizabeth, N.J., and Brownsville, Texas.
It also provides 25, one-time $2,000 scholarships to Hispanic STEM majors already in college.
Adolph Falcon, senior vice president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health, says studies show more Hispanic youths are interested in STEM careers than non-Hispanic whites when they enter college, but fewer Hispanics graduate in those fields.
After investigating that discrepancy, the Alliance came up with a program tailored to Hispanic students.
Besides tuition aid, the scholarships include three stipends of $7,500 each to pay students for summer internships. Internships are critical to launching a science career, but most are unpaid, putting them out of reach for many Hispanics who need to work during the summers to earn money for college.
The program also calls for mentors to guide and support participants, many of whom are the first in their families to attend college, and puts together a symposium to expose them to renown scholars.
“We see this as critical to our country’s prosperity and well being,” Falcon says.
Mancilla, a biology major at Columbia University, says he was motivated to pursue medicine after seeing the lack of medical services in low-income communities. “It makes you want to make a difference,” he says.
A neuroscience major at Pomona College, Garcia also wants to give back, by helping her parents’ native country of Bolivia. “I really want to do something, start a school or a library,” she says.
Making sure such motivated students succeed is the goal of the scholarship program. Says Falcon, “We’re absolutely convinced that one or more of our kids will be getting a Nobel prize one day.”. .
