Youth Rising: Fellows & Future Architects of Equity (Vol. 2, No. 3)

By Dr. Shane Nelson

The Shift | Vol. 2, No. 3 — We have to build our own power”: Women’s Fight Endures

Portrait of a Fellow: Anna Tong makes the future work on her terms

Our Evolve Fellows program, in partnership with LA-Tech.org, is a demonstration project under our Los Angeles Economic Empowerment Alliance. Each cohort member of the Evolve Fellows program receives a monthly allowance, access to a portion of a $25,000 emergency fund for their cohort, and debt-repayment upon graduation. Along with financial support, Evolve Fellows receive monthly engagement sessions across four areas of empowerment: academic, financial, self/community, and career.

We support cohorts of students at the following campuses:

• CSU Long Beach

• Cal State LA

• CSU Northridge

• UCLA

• Cal Poly Pomona

• CSU Dominguez Hills

When you first meet Anna Tong, a Cohort 1 Evolve Fellow from Cal Poly Pomona, you'll be struck by how present she is in any given space. I first met her during the group interview phase of the program and then at our Orientation. It was clear that she came in with high expectations to build community. Her ability to move around the room and make connections was clear. 

Anna is a Business Administration with a focus in Technology and Operations Management (TOM) major. During her first "internship summer" she landed a role with LA-Tech.org's Waymo Autonomous Vehicle career institute. There, she served as her team’s project leader in researching Waymo’s strategy playbook for launching its operations and fleet in Los Angeles. From the outside, this is a standard hope we all have doing economic development work with college students. Upon being members of our program, the internships appear due to their efforts and our partners' support. It worked for Anna and works for our Evolve fellows, but this isn't the standard for first generation college students.

Anna surpassed our expectations for where we wanted fellows to be in their online professional identity. She frequently posted updates on LinkedIn, scheduled ongoing mentorships, stayed engaged in coaching sessions, and was often the first to attend our virtual sessions. Rather than staying at an expected pace, she is leaning into more and helping us understand where to grow the program.

“What I got most out of the LA-Tech.org x Waymo Autonomous Vehicle Experience was the incredible mentorship I developed with my mentor that I hold strong even after the program ended. Besides learning about Waymo’s technology, it was the people at Waymo who continued to encourage and share their knowledge that made the experience so memorable.” 

Anna is an outlier in a cohort of current/future outliers. Findings from the Strada Education Foundation reported first-generation students having a lower level of intention to secure an internship compared to their non-first generation peers . This means that our students can benefit from programs that normalize that internships are a standard.

‘I have been fortunate to come from a warm and loving family and have crossed paths with my mentors, either from school, work, or at internships. As Timothee Chalamet said in his performance in the Prodigal Son, “someone decided I was good before I was good”. Every time I spoke to them, it gave me the confidence to try, to fail, and to rise”.

If we look at Anna's experience from a lens of engineering more empowerment across first-generation college students, we can arrive at a framework for early career growth

Anna set her own pace for her experience. When we talk about shifting the standard for first-generation career empowerment, we have to understand where we can adjust and challenge the current pace of our students. At LeadersUp, we're setting a new standard for youth engagement. As the pace setters, we know we're only starting the race. Young adults will reach the finish line of a flourishing economic future.

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Dr. Shane Nelson is the Director of Youth Engagement and Economic Empowerment at LeadersUp, merging critical research with practical actions for our portfolio of young adult programming.