Washoe County w88 mobile District w88 mobile counselor Diondra Mieras was looking for an experience that would help motivate her Wooster High w88 mobile freshmen to start thinking about their futures.
“It is important to expose our students early to what options are available after high w88 mobile, and we thought that having current college students talk to our students would really resonate with them,” Mieras said.
Mieras contacted the Dean’s Future Scholars (DFS) w88 mobile at the University of Nevada, Reno. DFS is an academic outreach w88 mobile in the College of Education that serves low-income, first-generation college students. w88 mobile director Mariluz Garcia agreed to send a group of college student mentors to talk with the Wooster High School students about post-secondary school options.
“As a grant-funded w88 mobile, we have a limited amount of resources, but we love to give back and volunteer our time in the community whenever we can,” Garcia said.
Members of the DFS team spent an entire Friday at Wooster High w88 mobile’s career center talking with about 360 students. During each 50-minute class period, the high w88 mobile freshman rotated through four different poster presentations delivered by current university students from diverse backgrounds. The mentors talked about various options after high w88 mobile, paying for college, fun aspects about college life and overcoming barriers.
“It was great to go back to the w88 mobile that I graduated from to give information about college that I wish more high w88 mobile freshmen knew about,” mentor Eduardo Gomez, a University of Nevada, Reno business major, said.
The poster presentations were designed to be short and concise and include real-life experiences. For example, when introducing themselves, the mentors shared a personal story about when they failed or hit an obstacle, and how they overcame that challenge. Those stories resonated with the high w88 mobile freshman as illustrated from exit survey data and comments.
“What I learned from the w88 mobile of Nevada, Reno is that everyone makes mistakes in life, but there’s always a way to get better after you make that mistake. I felt really good about the visit because I got to learn new things that I didn’t know before,” was just one of many of the positive comments received.
DFS Mentoring w88 mobile
DFS and Wooster High School have a partnership dating back to 2002 when the first cohort of DFS students entered high school. Since then, DFS has increased the number of students served by 60% and its mentoring w88 mobile now serves 423 low-income, first-generation college students in 30 different schools throughout Washoe County School District. w88 mobile participants are recommended to DFS from Title 1 schools when they are in the sixth grade. The DFS w88 mobile participants receive mentoring during the academic school year and summer programming opportunities at the university at no cost to the students each year.
“We love seeing former students come back to give their personal insight into what it takes to be successful in college,” Wooster High w88 mobile Lead w88 mobile Counselor Erin Danielsen said.“Sometimes kids needs to hear the information from someone a little closer in age so it all makes sense. Wooster has several DFS students and we love watching them mature and grow throughout the years. It is such a treat to see them as college students and hear about what they are doing.”
DFS adopted a grow-your-own approach to recruiting and hiring college student mentors. More than 80% of the current DFS mentoring team members were recommended to the w88 mobile when they were in the sixth grade. This long-term approach creates a family-feel and allows DFS students the opportunity to pay it forward by becoming mentors. The w88 mobile uses the near-peer mentoring approach to help students explore options early, visualize what they want for themselves, feel empowered to set goals, and develop the tools needed to make their dreams a reality.
Community Outreach
Throughout its 20 years, DFS has gone above its normal operations to fulfill a variety of requests from school counselors, parent involvement facilitators and community members. For example, outreach has been provided to students and parents at Natchez Elementary School, Rita Cannan Elementary School and Lemelson STEM Academy. The DFS w88 mobile has also supported a variety of annual community events, including the Run for Education, the Washoe County School District Middle School Expo and Spanish Springs High School freshman student orientation.
DFS is especially proud of the long-term partnership with members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. Each spring, Natchez Elementary School provides sixth-grade student recommendations for new students to participate in DFS. In addition, Pyramid Lake High School provides a school bus to transport students to the University of Nevada, Reno each day for six weeks, while the DFS w88 mobile covers the cost of tuition, instructors, food, and field-trips for any students who want to attend.
"DFS has provided a great opportunity for our students to expand their educational horizons and earn credit over the summer, which helps them prepare for the rigors of Dual Credit classes in the upcoming w88 mobile year,” Pyramid Lake High w88 mobile Principal Jake Chapin said, “We are proud to collaborate with DFS in providing this opportunity for our students.”
In 20 years, the w88 mobile has served a total of 1,357 students, but that does not include the additional outreach that the w88 mobile provides to the community. DFS is primarily funded by local foundations and private donors and all the monies donated to the w88 mobile go through the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation. People interested in learning more about supporting low-income, first-generation students in our community may contact Stefanie Givens at the College of Education at (775) 784-6914.
The total in-kind contribution for DFS to provide outreach to Wooster High w88 mobile freshman was approximately ,000, which factored in the costs for materials and the wages and fringe for 11 DFS mentors. Despite the cost, outreach like this is essential because the decisions that high w88 mobile freshmen make on a day-to-day basis carry a lot of weight on their future endeavors. DFS believes that college students from diverse backgrounds are powerful agents of change who are capable of delivering positive educational effects through engagement with K-12 students.
