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Guadalupe Rojas has been a Daley College student since she was three years old.
Guadalupe Rojas has been a Daley College student since she was three years old. Growing up, her father took English as a Second Language (ESL) courses at Daley. Guadalupe would go with him and, together, they learned English.
She had no idea Daley would play another major role in her life until years later. In high school, Guadalupe wasn’t sure what she wanted to study in college. She decided to stay in Chicago and attend community college to complete her core classes and decide on a future career. She was already familiar with Daley, and it was her closest City Colleges campus, so she became a student there again. It was exactly what Guadalupe said she needed.
“My favorite part about being a City Colleges student was it gave me more time to figure out who I wanted to be and what I wanted to study,” she said.
City Colleges also gave Guadalupe the room to discover her major, business, and explore her other interests, performing arts and writing. Guadalupe and her women’s literature professor, Marcy Rae Henry, grew very close. While Marcy teaches at Wright, virtual classes allowed the two to build a strong relationship. Guadalupe interviewed Marcy for an essay for another English class. Marcy also offered to write Guadalupe a letter of recommendation for transfer scholarships and sent Guadalupe a list of scholarships she may be eligible for.
“With professors, you want to get the feeling they care about you,” Guadalupe said. “Her [Marcy] going out of her way to email me a whole list of scholarships and making sure she has time for me for an interview when I’m not even taking her class anymore is really touching.”
It’s not just professors making a profound impact on Guadalupe, either. She’s making an impact on her peers as well by supporting and mentoring them. Guadalupe does work study in the Transfer Center. Because she likes to write, she helps students improve and edit their essays. She will also be a mentor for the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship application process, and she worked in the Transfer Center as a One Summer Chicago intern over the summer preparing scholarship information for the fall.
Despite everything on Guadalupe’s plate, she has maintained a 4.0 GPA and begun the transfer process. She hopes to attend the University of Southern California to study marketing with a minor in entertainment studies. Eventually, she wants to use her love of business, marketing, and entertainment to be a talent manager for an actor or a band. Guadalupe plans to use the lessons she learned at City Colleges at her four-year university, in her career, and in her life.
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