by Marvin Cabrera, DeHostos-Wise Program Director
After weeks of preparation and anticipation, the moment had arrived for our three-day college road trip. As a yearly rite of passage for thousands of students, it came as no surprise that our Dreamers would make whatever necessary sacrifice to participate on this college trip. Several weeks prior, as a means to add another layer of foundation and understanding to the college and financial aid processes, many of the Dreamers gave up their Saturday to attend our daylong College Summit. And when we explained to them that our three-day tour would begin in the wee morning hours, 5:00am to be exact, their unwavering dedication to their futures was unshaken. As 62 Dreamers and six Program Directors from the Chelsea-Elliott, DeHostos-Wise, and Ravenswood cohorts boarded the buses en route to Upstate New York on Wednesday, February 19, there was a feeling that this was truly going to be a college trip like no other--this would be the tipping point for Dreamers to move one step closer to college and finalize the metamorphoses into Dreamer Scholars.
We experienced the gamut of colleges during this college tour. There were technical schools, a large state university, and picturesque small liberal arts and artsy-fartsy colleges. It was truly a learning experience for everyone with a smidgen, okay, a ton of fun! Our first stops were SUNY Delhi and Cobleskill. These colleges emphasized the practical application of college and how they can lead directly into a career. Since Cobleskill is an agriculture school, one pleasant surprise and highlight was the campus farm, comprised of pigs and goats amongst other animals. Our next stops were Hamilton College and SUNY Binghamton. Hamilton presented a typical liberal arts experience with an emphasis on skills-based learning to adapt to an ever-changing world while Binghamton was a college metropolis where one would not miss anything from New York City. Our final destinations were Manhattanville and Sarah Lawrence Colleges. Manhattanville now a liberal arts institution, displayed remnants of its religious past, and was a hybrid of the best of what a technical and liberal arts college had to offer—skills-based emphasis with immediate career tracks. On a different spectrum, Sarah Lawrence was the mecca for artists and creative writers with concentrations instead of majors, allowing for students to truly explore their interests in an interdisciplinary manner across subjects. These varieties of colleges and universities provided the Dreamers with a wide array of ideas of the college experience and a point of reference for deeper conversations when delving into the college application process. By the end of the tour, even though exhausted from the journey, the Dreamers’ excitement ensued and they now understood that college was imminent with all of its possibilities.
With over thirty years of planting the seeds of opportunity for Dreamers, this trip is a continuation of the “I Have A Dream” Foundation’s legacy. As the high school doors quickly shut for these 62 Dreamers and the college gates swiftly welcome them, we have been fortunate to be a part of this moment in their lives, their amazing journeys, and along the way imparting life lessons while they let us into their hearts. This was much more than a three-day college trip, but rather a metaphor for the seed that continues to grow and transform, ready to begin the next phase of their lives. College is indeed on the horizon and with that everything is possible.
