Fatima Saldana Oropeza walked into the Columbus Learning Center Friday morning, nervous about the thought of college.
How would the Columbus North High School senior pay for it? Would her classes be too difficult? How would she manage her time?
After attending Exito Latino, a one-day event at the Columbus Learning Center, Saldana Oropeza detached from the unease and walked out of the building feeling confident about her choice to hopefully attend IUPUC in just one year.
“I wanted to get more information about college and gain a view of how it is, what kind of people are here, how it’s going to be,” Saldana Oropeza said. “It gave me more hope, like college might actually be my thing.”
Saldana Oropeza was one of 170 Latino students from area high schools in Columbus, Seymour and Shelbyville who attended the annual event, where students can attend discussion sessions about finding scholarships, navigating college, overcoming obstacles and paying for college.
The event is the brainchild of Matt Souza, IUPUC’s special assistant to the vice chancellor and dean for strategy, who created a scholarship fund for undocumented Latino high school graduates to pay for college. The fund was created after he began to notice more and more Latino students graduating from high school than ever before.
For more on this story, see Saturday’s Republic.
