Out of some 61,000 graduates in the University of California’s Class of 2024, close to a third started their higher ed journey at a California community college.
Parents, veterans, seasoned learners, those seeking a fresh start: UC transfer students come from every background imaginable. Among transfer students, 45 percent are among the first in their families to earn a college degree, 29 percent are low-income and 35 percent learned English as a second language. They arrive at UC with intellectual curiosity, grit and a passion for learning, bringing diverse perspectives and life experiences that enrich our campuses in immeasurable ways.
Read on to find out how some of UC’s newest first-gen grads made their way from community college to commencement. (Click the links for a shortcut to each.)
UC Berkeley: Brandon Sánchez Mejia, “The sky’s the limit”
UC Davis: Vinh Ton, Finding your people
UC Irvine: Tatyana Hazelwood, Helping others and discovering herself
UCLA: Emily Wang, A role model for her daughter
UC Merced: Lynnelle Pantoja, Giving back in the Central Valley
UC Riverside: Victor Andrade, Discovering a campus community
UC San Diego: Manuel Vasconcelos, Bringing a humanist perspective to brain research
UC San Francisco: Warif Kastoun, From civil war to a white coat
UC Santa Barbara: Shadoe Neri-DeWitt, A Navy veteran turns to brain science
UC Santa Cruz: Kimberlee Paniza, Getting a fresh start
At 16, Brandon Sánchez Mejia was stuck inside his family home in Chalatenango, El Salvador, watching other teens go to school through the kitchen window. His family had moved from San Salvador, and his mother wanted to keep him safe from gangs. Plus, there was no money for school. But far from dampening his desire to learn, it only fueled it. He read every book he could get ahold of and helped other kids with their homework through the bars on the windows. Recognizing his passion, neighbors helped pay for school supplies, and at age 18 he went off to his first day of high school. That same year he also got a camera phone and began documenting his life — the start of a passion for photography. Then his family got the good news: After a 14-year wait, their U.S. Green Card application had been approved.
When he landed in Los Angeles at age 22, Sánchez knew only a few words of English. He worked as a dishwasher and started taking ESL classes at Santa Monica College (SMC). Those classes stretched from one year to four, from English to design and photography. When he finished a class, SMC counselors would ask, “What are you going to take next?” until he had racked up enough credits to transfer.
Though he hadn’t started SMC with the idea of transferring, Sánchez ended up applying to eight universities. “I was 100 percent sure it wouldn’t happen for me,” he says. “I thought it was impossible.” He got in everywhere and chose UC Berkeley. Pushing beyond the doubt, he took a leap of faith, packed his camera and moved north. “I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to pay for it,” remembers Sánchez. “But I got a Pell Grant, I got work-study, I got a bunch of scholarships and I took a small loan. I was able to pay for tuition, books, food, rent — everything. Growing up, we didn’t have beds. We just slept on the floor. So when I got to Berkeley, for the first time in my life I was even able to buy a bed to sleep in.” He was 27.
At UC Berkeley, Sánchez pursued every opportunity he could cram into his schedule. He found a community in the Department of Art Practice and got campus jobs that expanded his photo skills. Sánchez’s bold thesis project, A Masculine Vulnerability, challenged male stereotypes. “It came from this idea that as men, we are not allowed to show skin as scars or emotions or weakness,” he said. Some 150 of his photographs were exhibited in a giant installation for his senior show. At 29, Sánchez’s photography career is heating up, and he has become the first person in his family to earn a degree.
What’s next? This fall Sánchez heads to London with the UC Berkeley study abroad program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. After that, he plans to pursue an MFA.
The moment Vinh Ton got accepted at UC Davis, he started a spreadsheet. He already knew he would major in Statistics, but he also wanted to minor in Theater & Dance. As a transfer student, packing everything into two years would require careful planning, and it wasn’t too soon to start.
Thinking of Ton’s interests in math and theater as a duality is too simplistic: He has many more facets. At UC Davis, he went on to add a humanities minor in Asian American Studies, helped actively build community among transfer students, became an event photographer, learned ballroom dance and more. “Some quarters I had to push myself to the limit, but I just wanted to do it all,” he says.
Ton’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam in the 1990s to seek greater opportunity and join relatives already in California. While they hadn’t gone to college, it was always implied that Ton would. Though he was admitted to several UCs right out of high school, he opted to go to his local community college instead. His brother had a new baby and his mom was managing the family nail salon, and he wanted to help his family. Going to De Anza College, Ton could do some of the front office work. The Covid-19 pandemic had pushed school online, so classes weren’t in person anyway. And it made sense financially: Studying and living at home for the first two years of college lowered his costs significantly.
Still, paying to transfer to UC was a concern. When he did make the jump, Ton ended up getting a Pell Grant and scholarships that covered his tuition and fees. To meet his other living costs, he saved up before school started, and then continued working part-time on campus. Small, low-interest student loans gave him enough padding to limit his work hours and focus on school.
One of those jobs, a paid role as a Student Outreach Ambassador for the Transfer Opportunity Program (TOP), became a big part of Ton’s UC experience. From webinars to overnights, TOP programs help prospective transfer students see themselves at UC Davis, giving them the tools and information to succeed. “Community college students are highly motivated and genuinely interested in learning,” says Ton. “It gives me such an invigorating, electrifying feeling to help them, because it truly makes a difference.”
With all his interests and activities, Ton has been able to tap into a number of different communities on campus, forging relationships that helped him get through the hard work of college. “Finding your people makes it so much more manageable. Even if you have a really challenging workload, it helps to know that someone is doing it with you.”
What’s next? Ton jokes that he’s saving a return to academia for when he has his “quarter-life crisis.” This summer he’ll be a production assistant at Berkeley Repertory Theater and will continue to help with UC Davis transfer student programs. Longer term, he’s keen to do data aggregation work with Asian American communities.
To say that Tatyana Hazelwood has made the most of her time at UC Irvine would be an understatement. In two short years, she has completed two majors, mentored dozens of other students, volunteered in the Basic Needs Center, worked in a research lab, served as the Umoja president, helped incarcerated students navigate academia, and more. On campus, she’s in her element. But it wasn’t always this way.
Growing up, Hazelwood’s family moved frequently, often facing housing and food insecurity. She was bullied in school and suffered panic attacks. The stress led her to finish early and enroll at Palomar College in San Marcos when she was just 16. Immigrants from Mexico and Panama, her parents hadn’t attended college and didn’t know how to help her realize her dream of going to UC. “I just thought, ‘I’m never going to get there,’” she recalls. “I held UC in my mind with such prestige — compared to my life, it didn’t seem possible.”
A Palomar counselor told her about UC’s generous financial aid, and Hazelwood discovered that UC Irvine had a program in criminal justice, one of her longtime interests. After three-plus years, she transferred to UC Irvine with all her tuition and expenses covered.
Where her earlier school experiences had been onerous at best, UC Irvine became Hazelwood’s happy place. She discovered the Transfer Student Center, which she says became a home away from home. She participated in Umoja, a program that supports Black transfer students, and found counselors who were ready to help. In an eye-opening discovery, she learned she was “system-impacted,” a term for formerly incarcerated students as well as those with a family member or other loved one in the justice system. Hazelwood’s father and brother had both spent time behind bars, and now she realized just how much the impact lingered. “I always felt a little bit different, I just wasn’t exactly sure what it was,” she recalls.
That realization turned into a job in the Transfer Student Center as a peer mentor focused on helping system-impacted students navigate campus. Her work eventually led her to a paid internship with LIFTED (Leveraging and Inspiring Futures through Educational Degrees), a program that helps incarcerated students get bachelor’s degrees from UC Irvine.
Once convinced that she had no place at UC — and that she certainly couldn’t afford it — Hazelwood will finish with not one but two B.A.s and zero student loans.
What’s next? After a gap year, Hazelwood plans to get a graduate degree in clinical psychology. Her ultimate goal is to open a practice that’s a hub for Black psychologists, who are underrepresented in the field.
When Emily Wang came to California with her husband and daughter, she knew just one person in this country. Back in China, in the southern coastal city of Xiamen, she had made a career as a tour guide, in many ways a dream job for this inquisitive, outgoing people person. But her husband’s family was Hui, a Muslim ethnic minority that faces discrimination in China, and when their daughter was three, they decided to leave for the U.S.
Settling near Los Angeles, Wang worked as a restaurant cashier and contemplated options for her future. Learning English was key, so she enrolled in ESL classes at El Camino College in Torrance. A counselor told her about transferring to a four-year university. Wang was 34 at the time, with a first-grader in tow. “They told me, it’s never too late to learn,” she said. “I thought, ‘Wow, really? Even for me?’”
Wang got connected with the Center for Community College Partnerships, a program that helps students transfer. Through CCCP’s online workshops, she heard from other student parents and began to feel hopeful that UC might be attainable. In the process of applying, Wang discovered that technically, she was an undocumented immigrant. The family had come to the U.S. legally, applied for asylum, and had work permits — the papers, after all, were in hand. But after eight years, they were still waiting for an interview and didn’t have Green Cards. What’s more, the application was under her husband’s name, but the two had separated and lost touch in the pandemic, so she had no access to even basic information on her case.
The revelations empowered her, stoking her desire to pursue policy work. “I thought, since I’m stuck in this situation, I’m going to use my undocumented identity as my strength to advocate,” she says. “We need immigration reform. We need more support systems to help undocumented immigrants who are already here, like my daughter.” She immediately began lobbying on behalf of undocumented immigrants, starting with a state Senate bill that helped expand access to state-based financial aid for undocumented students.
Wang had figured there would be modest financial support at UCLA, but that the degree itself was worth taking on debt. “Getting accepted at UCLA felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I didn’t want to miss it.” She was prepared to make the financial investment. To her surprise, between her job and a financial aid package that included California Dream Act funding and private scholarships, she was able to cover her tuition and living costs without taking on any student loans.
Now 40 and a single parent, Wang often brings her 11-year-old daughter to campus. “My parenting philosophy is not so much about telling my daughter what to do, but showing her what to do,” she says. “I bring her to classes and events at UCLA. She went to the LINK leadership seminars with me and even met the chancellor. College will be natural for her.”
What’s next? Wang will be continuing her work in political advocacy as a voice for the undocumented immigrant community. When her daughter is a bit older, she plans to return to school for a law degree.
From a young age, Lynnelle Pantoja knew she wanted to work in health care. She had helped her mom manage her diabetes since she was little, and growing up in Stockton, she had seen how chronic health challenges can affect individuals, families and communities.
Pantoja’s mom didn’t finish college, but there was always the expectation that her daughter would. She enrolled at San Joaquin Delta College out of high school so she could live at home and save money before getting her bachelor’s degree — a stepping stone to becoming a physician. As a first-generation college student, community college also offered some appealing perks. Pantoja saw it as a place where she could “learn how to go to college,” picking up new study habits, learning the ropes of higher ed and building confidence. It felt like a safe space to experiment and make mistakes while preparing for the rigor of a university.
When it came time to transfer, UC Merced beckoned. The school was not far from her hometown and her tight-knit family, and even better, it offered just the program she wanted in Public Health. UC Merced also offered her a great financial aid package. Pantoja received a Pell Grant and campus scholarships and was hired to work part-time at the transfer center — between it all, she’ll be graduating with zero student debt.
Pantoja found what she calls her “second family” at UC Merced, especially at the transfer student center. “I was able to find a community of people who understand what it took for me to get here. A lot of people here are first-generation college students, and it’s a Hispanic-Serving Institution, so I was able to connect with others who share my culture. Everybody is so friendly here, and people truly care.”
Graduating at 27, Pantoja has a message for those who might follow in her footsteps: “Being a transfer student, sometimes our path isn’t always the most traditional, and that’s okay. Everyone’s educational journey is different — celebrate yourself and be proud of your accomplishments.”
What’s next? Pantoja is taking a gap year to get real-world experience in health care and apply to medical school. Her ultimate goal is to help people in her community in the Central Valley, where a perennial shortage of physicians and medical professionals has led to a health care crisis.
Victor Andrade, a member of the Chemehuevi tribe who grew up in Moreno Valley, had always envisioned going to a four-year university from high school, and nearby UC Riverside was his dream. Connie, his single-parent mom, encouraged him along that path. She had attended college but didn’t finish, and she wanted to see her son go further.
But when Connie got injured in a hit-and-run accident on the way home from work, life took a different turn. Just as he was about to graduate from high school, Andrade found himself the caregiver and breadwinner for his mom and younger brother. Instead of heading to UC, he began taking part-time evening classes at Riverside City College (RCC), working graveyard-shift jobs and taking care of family chores during the day. But he kept his eyes on the prize, planning out his transfer strategy to UC Riverside through the TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) program in Sociology. Five years after graduating from high school, he finally got there.
Andrade quickly found a second home in the Native American Students Program (NASP) on campus. NASP offered a place to study and socialize, use a computer, get supplies, grab a free snack or even take a nap (all things especially useful to Andrade as a commuter student). He participated in NASP community events that showcase the Native American presence on campus, like UC Riverside’s popular annual powwow. NASP also led to opportunities like his current teaching job at the Sherman Indian School in Riverside.
Friends from NASP recommended electives that have helped Andrade connect with his Native California heritage even more, like a Cahuilla language course and Intro to Native American Studies. “Usually when you learn about Native American culture, you are hearing the perspectives of outside observers. The classes I’ve taken at UC Riverside are taught by Native American faculty, and it’s very different. It’s been so beneficial.”
In fact, Native American resources on campus are part of why Andrade intentionally chose UC Riverside. “It’s been comforting to know that this place is a kind of meeting point for many different tribes — and it has been for centuries, long before there was a campus. Native American students and faculty come here specifically to learn and teach about our cultures.”
Throughout most of his UC career, Andrade continued to work full time to support his family. It took absolute grit and determination, along with a powerful dose of inspiration. For that, he only had to look as far as his mom, a social worker who specializes in unhoused populations. And with Andrade’s guidance, his younger brother, Johnny, transferred from Moreno Valley College to Cal State San Bernardino, where he is also on track to earn a bachelor’s degree.
What’s next? Andrade is applying for jobs as a social practitioner in Riverside County, with the ultimate goal of getting a master’s degree and becoming a social worker. He also plans to get more involved in local government in Moreno Valley, where he is already an advocate for the residents of his district: low-income renters and immigrants without a strong political voice.
The son of Mexican immigrants, Manuel Vasconcelos grew up near Santa Clarita, living with his large family in a small house behind a mechanic’s shop. As a kid, Vasconcelos would sometimes go to work with his parents, who managed fast food restaurants, or help his grandfather on his handyman jobs.
“They never told me I needed to be a lawyer or a doctor or anything,” he says. “But they showed me what it feels like to work in a kitchen or lay shingles all day. The unspoken message was, ‘Go to school. This isn’t the work you want to do.’”
Still, when he graduated from high school, Vasconcelos figured four-year universities were “for super rich people or geniuses.” But his school offered automatic, free admission to the local community college, and he knew it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Vasconcelos had developed an interest in the cultural uses of psychedelics, so he ended up studying anthropology. The experience allowed him to follow his curiosity, showed him he could succeed in higher ed and motivated him to go further.
When it came time to transfer, Vasconcelos noticed UC San Diego’s Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience major. Intrigued, he dug in further. “I was just blown away because it was everything I was just interested in,” he says. The prospect of jumping to a STEM field was intimidating, but at the same time, it was exactly what he wanted to do. He got in and was likewise accepted into STARTneuro, a competitive program that trains, mentors and funds diverse transfer students in neuroscience and helps them find jobs in research labs.
STARTneuro’s summer program helped get the ball rolling right away. The new STEM material was challenging at first. But once classes got going, he realized, “Oh right, they don’t expect me to know everything. That’s why I’m here — to learn.” A lot has changed since then. Vasconcelos is now a research assistant in the Salk Institute’s Tye Lab for systems neurobiology, researching how psilocybin, the main psychoactive agent in magic mushrooms, affects emotional processing. “STARTneuro is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” says Vasconcelos. “I love what I am doing, and I wouldn’t be where I am now if not for this program.”
The program was also helpful in paying for school. Vasconcelos had been planning to continue working at Whole Foods during college, but he’s been able to do career-kickstarting lab work instead. He sends a chunk of money home to help his parents cover their monthly expenses, and pays for school with a Pell Grant, UC San Diego grants and subsidized loans.
Vasconcelos believes his unique background makes him a better scientist. His upbringing taught him perseverance, resilience and hard work. And his humanities background leads him to ask questions that bring new perspectives to the team in his research lab.
“My family is proud of me,” he says. “My grandfather and great-grandfather are also named Manuel. All the sacrifices they made allowed me to have the privilege of going to school. I’m honored to share their name and be able to say look, we’re graduating.”
What’s next? Vasconcelos will continue working at the Tye Lab as full-time lab tech on a two-year appointment, which will allow him to see his current research through from start to finish. He also plans to apply for Ph.D. programs.
Warif Kastoun felt the allure of the white coat early on. Growing up in Damascus, she had always looked up to pharmacists, who operate as independent health care professionals in Syria. “I always wanted to be in the health care field,” she says. “In Syria, pharmacists are well respected. Patients come to them for advice like they would a physician. It always seemed like a really rewarding way to help people.”
But the Syrian Civil War interrupted Kastoun’s plans to run her own local pharmacy. Between the start of the war in 2011 and emigrating to the U.S. in 2015, she and her brother both continued to attend school, though classes would be sporadically canceled — sometimes for weeks on end — when conditions became too dangerous. “It was a crazy time. We always had this hope of just leaving the country, of finding a safe home.” After four years of chaos, fear and violence, her family’s asylum application was approved. Though the journey was difficult, they eventually found a haven in Southern California.
Kastoun finished her last two years of high school in the U.S. Still holding tight to her dream of becoming a pharmacist, she enrolled in Cerro Cosa Community College in Ridgecrest to begin working toward that goal. A counselor helped her map out a plan to transfer to UC Santa Barbara as a chemistry major. Along the way, she racked up associate’s degrees in math, biology and liberal arts. The Covid-19 pandemic was in full swing at the time, but after a year of online classes, Kastoun was able to leapfrog into the pharmacy program at UC San Francisco.
In medical school Kastoun found the academic challenge she had been yearning for as she learned the ropes of her field. Two years of classes in San Francisco were followed by a year of training at the UCSF program in Los Angeles, where she worked in hospitals and pharmacies at UCLA, UC Irvine and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Now, with graduation imminent, Kastoun reflects on her journey and her chosen profession: “This is where I belong. This is my spot, right here.”
What’s next? This summer Kastoun begins a yearlong postgraduate residency at Stanford. She’ll be the only Pharm.D. resident in an innovative ambulatory care program where pharmacists collaborate with physicians to manage chronic conditions for hospital patients.
Growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, as the oldest of four kids, Shadoe Neri-Dewitt spent a lot of time taking care of his younger siblings. His mom, a single parent, struggled with drug addiction and was often gone, leaving Neri-Dewitt as the de facto adult. When he turned 18, he joined the Navy. “I had no idea what I wanted to do,” he says. “I just knew that this was the best way for me to get out of poverty, move up and go to college. I absolutely could not have afforded to do that without the GI Bill.”
Neri-Dewitt completed two years of Navy schooling to become a nuclear engineer, studying electrical engineering, particle physics, thermodynamics, fluid flow, and more, then trained on a nuclear submarine. A three-and-a-half-year tour in Japan followed, stationed on a ship in the South China Sea. With one year left on his military contract, he transferred to an aircraft carrier in San Diego.
Transitioning back to the civilian world, Neri-Dewitt didn’t want to continue as a nuclear engineer, which paid well, but was so physically demanding it caused him permanent joint damage. Unsure what to do next, and with the Covid-19 pandemic raging, community college seemed like the right transition. He enrolled at Grossmont-Cuyamaca College, and with the help of a counselor and his wife, steered toward transferring to UC to pursue his interest in psychology.
“One of the big things that I wanted to do was to give back to my community,” he says. “Veterans struggle a lot, especially when they get out on the other side. There are a lot of mental health issues. The suicide rate is high, and addiction is a big problem. I knew I wanted to do something to help.”
At UC Santa Barbara, he found community at the Veteran Resource Center and the Transfer Center. And he discovered an interest in research after connecting with postdoc researcher Amédee Martella, who taught a psychology statistics class. “It was the first time I had been able to talk with someone in the field who does science every day,” he says. Martella advised him on graduate school, including what it’s like, how to apply and what experiences would help him stand out. “She really pushed me to get into a research lab and not take just any position, but to find one that’s relevant to what I want to do.”
He took the advice to heart and secured a position as a volunteer research assistant in UC Santa Barbara’s Kippin Lab, which specializes in the neurobiology of addiction. Neri-Dewitt hopes to do similar research on addiction and controlled substances in graduate school. “I chose a career path where I think I can make meaningful changes for people who suffer from addiction and depression, and now I'm getting experience that relates to exactly that. It has really solidified that I made the right decision.”
Between the GI Bill and VR&E (Veteran Readiness & Employment, a program for disabled veterans), Neri-Dewitt’s tuition and expenses at UC Santa Barbara have been fully covered. He’ll be 29 when he graduates, with zero student debt.
What’s next? Neri-Dewitt plans to pursue a Ph.D. and will be applying to programs this fall, including to UCs. His ultimate goal is to develop new treatments for addiction and depression. Meanwhile, he’ll continue working as a research assistant over the summer to bolster his lab experience.
When she started at UC Santa Cruz, Kimberlee Paniza was 30 years old and not yet a year out of prison. Six years earlier, Paniza had gotten most of the way through community college when her life changed unimaginably. Driving home after two beers at a bar, she had a devastating accident, hitting a motorcyclist who died of his injuries three weeks later.
It was a dark and difficult time, to say the least. The man’s wife came to visit her in prison and expressed that she didn’t want her husband’s death to be in vain. She wanted to see Paniza grow from it and do good in the world after completing her sentence. Paniza carries that conversation with her every day, “She is a very strong woman and has impacted my life in a big way. I’m incredibly grateful to her for trying to forgive me. Most people would not have done that.”
The entire experience, Paniza says, “made me realize that my life is not my own, that everything I do and every decision I made will affect other people, either directly or indirectly.” She knows things will never go back to how they were before, and focuses instead on pushing forward and doing better, one day at a time. “I’m always thinking, How can I be of service to people? What can I do for others? How can I consciously remove myself from things that will lead me to a path of destruction or harm?”
Paniza spent the last few months of her sentence in a transitional home. With access to a laptop, she researched how to go back to college and found the Underground Scholars Initiative. Originated at UC Berkeley and now serving all UC undergraduate campuses, Underground Scholars aims to build a “prison-to-school pipeline” by helping incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals (including people held in immigration detention) access higher education, along with students impacted by the criminal justice system (like those with incarcerated parents). Underground Scholars connected Paniza with a mentor, Danny Muñoz, who walked her through the application process.
Paniza never thought she could go to a UC, and accepting her admissions offer at UC Santa Cruz felt like taking a huge jump without knowing where she would land. “When I was deciding whether or not to go to UCSC, I was so scared. I don’t know what I was expecting, but when I got here I just knew, ‘This campus was made for me.’ I love it here.” Amid the redwoods, Paniza got the fresh start she needed and so much more.
That’s not to say that Paniza’s problems ceased overnight: the struggle along the way was real. One place she found help was at STARS, Services for Transfer and Reentry Students, which houses the campus Underground Scholars program. A case manager helped her navigate financial needs and find additional scholarships, while counselors offered holistic advising. Later, Paniza was able to turn her STARS connections into an internship with Underground Scholars and a job at Community College Partnerships — roles where she now mentors others.
Paniza’s work at STARS has given her community, purpose, and a way to make real her commitment to doing good in the world. It has also served as a proof of concept for her major. “I’ve always liked my sociology classes, but it wasn’t until I started working at STARS that I realized that I really like doing the work, too. It feels good to help other system-impacted students figure out ways to make university life more workable.” She’s also interested in helping incarcerated women in the future.
What’s next? Whether law school or a Ph.D., graduate school is definitely in Paniza’s future — she sees it as part of her mission to do good in the world. But first she’ll be taking a break to spend some quality time with her parents, who plan to retire soon in their native Philippines.
