Esmeralda Villalobos Pérez

UC Davis, Class of 2025 - Psychology & Chicano Studies
Paly, Class of 2021

Updated March 2025

Q: How has RTE helped you throughout college?

A: RTE has been helpful in so many ways. When I first graduated high school, I was planning on going straight to a 4-year college. The school I was considering was a private university, which would have been a lot more expensive. The RTE scholarship would help me cover the cost of that school, but I ended up not going because my financial aid package was not very generous, and I would have had to take out a lot of loans. Grainger and Kimberly helped me weigh my options because I wasn't even sure if I wanted to continue going to school at that point. It was a very hard time for me. So, not only did RTE help me financially, but the volunteers at RTE helped me figure out what I wanted to do, and my mentors even helped me with my community college application process.

Q: How has your college journey been so far?

A: It's been pretty good. I transferred to UC Davis last year, so my first two years were at Foothill College. It was a good experience, but since it was community college, I didn't have much of a traditional college experience, and with Covid, there were not many people on campus at that time. It was just very lonely. I felt that I handled myself well academically because it was a smaller school.

When I transferred to UC Davis last fall, I found it very different. Academically, the classes were a lot harder, and so I started to struggle a little bit just because I was not used to the big lecture halls, the assignments, and all that. It took me a while to navigate a bigger school. But now that I am in my last quarter, I feel like I have done pretty well.

Q: Looking to the future, what are your plans after you graduate?

A: I'm majoring in Psychology and minoring in Chicano Studies. Right now, I'm still looking for a job for when I graduate in June. I'm also still deciding if I want to attend grad school. I know that I do want to take a break, at least just for a year, before continuing my studies. I want to help in elementary schools as a guidance counselor and help underrepresented students. As I'm of Mexican heritage, I never really received the culturally appropriate guidance that I needed and wanted in elementary school. Many of the practices that the guidance counselors used were very Westernized. That's what made me interested in Psychology. I would like to make sure other kids like me don’t have to go through experiences like that. With my minor, I'm learning a lot about the Chicano community and I'm hoping to work in a school setting that will allow me to put my knowledge into practice.

My RTE mentor Grainger helped me get in touch with one of the education professors at UC Davis. That professor helped me understand the paths to get into the education profession. Grainger also helped to provide resources regarding what path I should take.