By Justin Reyes
Besides senior prom, the last varsity game, and the inevitable senior prank, senior year is a time when most graduates start preparing for the next step towards becoming an adult: college.
My sister who had just graduated a month ago went through this same grueling process of filling out college applications and writing essays on: “Why I want to attend College X.”
For many graduating seniors it’s an absolute dream to work hard during high school with the hopes of getting accepted to any of the few Ivy league colleges like Harvard or Yale or at to a world-class university like UC Berkeley, Duke, NYU, or Stanford.
But for my sister this was not the case. Despite my sister being a member of the student council, volunteering at a community health clinic, and graduating with honors she decided to go to a state university.
Although I have no problems with state universities, I knew the level of resources, individualized attention, diversity of courses, network of alumni, and well known professors there were at a prestigious universities. I wanted my sister to experience those things, and felt like she deserved it. I knew with a little effort she could compete with the best high school students out there, and get accepted at any Ivy league college. I persistently persuaded her to apply to any of these schools.
But my sister felt that the course load would be too challenging and intimidating. She also thought she would be alienated from the rest of the student body, who she thought would be filled with snobs and people who were way more ambitious than her.
Discouraged, thinking that these universities too would never admit a person like her in, she decided not to make the effort, and took the path of least resistance; applying to several state universities instead.
My parents who had immigrated from the Philippines in the late 70’s did not know much about the college application process in the United States or the culture and attitudes surrounding the impact of going to an Ivy league or a prestigious university. As a result, they made no effort to persuade my sister either.
It was all up to me.
Knowing my sister, I knew that it required more than one person close to her to change her mind. If my sister had been pushed by my parents, friends, and other people close to her, I am confident that she would have made the effort to suspend all her reservations and doubts and would have applied.
She might have been excited and overjoyed if she had been accepted to any one of the universities. Not to mention giving her a much needed confidence booster!
The takeaway for me as a brother, and supporter of women is that it requires not just one person in a network to encourage or empower, but others as well. Women like my sister need to hear that they “Can do it!” from multiple people, not just one voice.
Working at Femgineer, I have seen this in action. Either through mentoring sessions, workshops, forums, or even our Lean Product Development course. Poornima and Karen know the power of having a high touch support network, after all, these two women got their start at good colleges: Duke and Brown!
Their consistent support and guidance have empowered many women in tech companies, in particular, to speak up to their bosses, foster an environment that is female friendly with co-workers, and dispel their insecurities to innovate or take a leadership position.
If we are to “change the ratio” for women in tech we will need a much bigger support network of other Femgineer supporters to educate, encourage, and empower.
I only wish that my sister had much more encouragement from others than just me to motivate her during her college application process, but I’ll continue to do my best to champion her throughout her college career!
Justin Reyes is an web marketer noob, blogger, startup fanatic, coder (when need be) and obsessed with the Silicon Valley tech community.
