{"id":21272,"date":"2017-04-10T09:40:01","date_gmt":"2017-04-10T13:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencescosmaincms.cm.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=21272"},"modified":"2017-04-12T11:28:23","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T15:28:23","slug":"first-generation-student-fueled-passion-help-underrepresented","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/first-generation-student-fueled-passion-help-underrepresented\/","title":{"rendered":"First-Generation Student Fueled by Passion to Help Those Underrepresented"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Story by Rachel Williams, UCF Today<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_21273\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-21273\" class=\"wp-image-21273 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2017\/04\/Elizabeth-Santiago.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"600\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-21273\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elizabeth Santiago at the 2017 Order of Pegasus ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Elizabeth Santiago sat with tears in her eyes as she and 20 other University of Central Florida students were honored March 27 with the <a href=\"http:\/\/today.ucf.edu\/21-students-receive-universitys-highest-honor\/\">Order of Pegasus award<\/a>, UCF\u2019s highest student honor.<\/p>\n<p>She thought of all those who helped her accomplish such a feat that at one point seemed impossible. She especially thought of her mother in the crowd who herself was told she wasn\u2019t college material while in high school, who worked multiple jobs as a single mother to provide for her children and who motivated Santiago to stay in school when she was close to dropping out.<\/p>\n<p>Santiago, a senior studying psychology with a minor in legal studies, was struck with grief her freshman year at UCF when her uncle and father figure, who lived in Montana, unexpectedly passed away.<\/p>\n<p>Santiago felt torn between her studies and grieving with her family, who planned to drive across the country to Montana. She thought there was no way to do both. That is, until she was connected with UCF resources that could help her.<\/p>\n<p>Her former professor and now mentor, Cyndia Muniz, Ph.D., assistant director of Multicultural Academic &amp; Support Services, directed Santiago to Counseling and Psychological Services to help her cope with her grief. There, she also got help informing her professors about the situation so a system could be worked out in which she had time to grieve with family but could also complete her courses.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing a <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/ripple-effect\/\" target=\"_blank\">first-generation student<\/a> often means you\u2019re on your own because in the realm of college, this is uncharted territory,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cIf those resources hadn\u2019t been presented to me at that time, it\u2019s scary to me to think where I could\u2019ve ended up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Santiago has since become president of the Latin American Student Association at UCF, and a member of the President\u2019s Leadership Council and Chi Upsilon Sigma. She helps educate students about the opportunities and resources available at UCF through one-on-one mentorship and her leadership role with the Latin American Student Association. She\u2019s helped connect students with internships, jobs, volunteer work and simply provided guidance on how to achieve certain goals like being a President\u2019s Leadership Council member. She\u2019s currently mentoring 13 students through the Latin American Student Association and the President\u2019s Leadership Council.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hear a lot of first-generation stories from different students. I\u2019m not one in a million, which I think is great because that means more and more Latino students are coming forth and furthering their education,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cA common link among the first-generation stories I\u2019ve heard, although there are many different faces, is they all want to succeed. They just don\u2019t always know how.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That was the case for Santiago. She knew she wanted to go to college, but she didn\u2019t know how or where to begin. With the help and support of her mother, together they learned the college application process, what Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was, and how to take the SAT in Santiago\u2019s senior year of high school in Cape Coral, FL.<\/p>\n<p>Working part time to help pay for groceries and electric bills, Santiago didn\u2019t have much time to study for the SAT and earned a score lower than she had hoped for. Hopes of attending college didn\u2019t die there, though, as Santiago was offered a spot in UCF\u2019s summer-admission program, Seizing Opportunities for Achievement and Retention. The program connects incoming freshman who demonstrate an academic need with a six-week, two-course schedule, advising sessions, mentoring and more. Successful completion of the program grants SOAR students full admission to UCF.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen all other schools said \u2018no,\u2019 UCF said \u2018yes\u2019 and took a chance on me,\u201d Santiago said. \u201cThey saw more than just a test score.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Santiago will graduate next month and plans to attend law school. She aspires to be a family attorney for those who can\u2019t afford proper representation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese past four years have been amazing watching her grow and her drive to succeed. I just pointed her in the direction of resources and opportunities here at UCF and she took it and ran with it,\u201d said Muniz. \u201cI\u2019m going to miss her when she graduates, but I\u2019m so excited to see what she\u2019s going to do in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Story by Rachel Williams, UCF Today Elizabeth Santiago sat with tears in her eyes as she and 20 other University of Central Florida students were honored March 27 with the Order of Pegasus award, UCF\u2019s highest student honor. She thought of all those who helped her accomplish such a feat that at one point seemed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":21273,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,38,13,22,29,30],"tags":[4540,4535,4534,1148,4539,4536,4538,4533,2739,4537,3541],"class_list":["post-21272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-breaking-news","category-news","category-psychology-departments","category-ucf-news","category-undergraduate-student-news","tag-chi-upsilon-sigma","tag-counseling-and-psychological-services","tag-cyndia-muniz","tag-elizabeth-santiago","tag-first-generation-student","tag-latin-american-student-association","tag-multicultural-academic-support-services","tag-order-of-pegasus-award","tag-presidents-leadership-council","tag-seizing-opportunities-for-achievement-and-retention","tag-ucf-department-of-psychology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>First-Generation Student Fueled by Passion to Help Those Underrepresented - College of Sciences News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sciences.ucf.edu\/news\/first-generation-student-fueled-passion-help-underrepresented\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First-Generation Student Fueled by Passion to Help Those Underrepresented - College of Sciences News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Story by Rachel Williams, UCF Today Elizabeth Santiago sat with tears in her eyes as she and 20 other University of Central Florida students were honored March 27 with the Order of Pegasus award, UCF\u2019s highest student honor. 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