Engineers of the Future (EOF)

High school was a huge blur. To be completely honest, I remember little of it. At my high school, alumni would visit to provide tips for attending college. One thing that each person would say is "do not forget to check off the EOF box on your college applications." They would follow that statement with a grocery list of positive comments about this mystery program. Like most teenagers, I would roll my eyes and almost want to ignore it. Well lets just say that eventually, I did check off the box.

That itself was the best decision that I made in high school!

Engineers of the Future, Rutgers School of Engineering's Equal Opportunity Fund Program, provided me with every resource that I needed to be successful in college. The Equal Opportunity Fund provides financial assistance and support services (e.g. counseling, tutoring, and developmental course work) to students from educationally and economically disadvantaged backgrounds who attend institutions of higher education in the State of New Jersey [1]. However, from my perspective it is far more than that....

EOF is a family! Literally. My advisors... I call mom, dad, sister, cheerleaders, lifesavers, superhero... Sound cheesy? No, really, I call them that. You see, they give me unconditional love, like what a parent would do. When I am having a great day, they celebrate that day with me. If I have a bad day, they listen to me and help me make it better. Their door is always open. My EOF friends... they are my brothers and sisters. We help each other through our academic, personal and professional struggles. Like family, we cry and laugh together. We go to each other's birthday celebrations, graduations, weddings and baby showers. We send each other funny memes about literally anything and everything or tag each other on posts of places we want to visit together.

As a first-generation college student, it is really important to have that family bond when attending college. It is extremely important to have advisors who are always going to have their doors open for you when you need any advice. For me, specifically, my parents have minimal education. My dad had to drop out of school when he was in 8th grade and my mom had some high school education. Neither of my parents speak English and that makes it just a bit harder. Because of this, I was never able to run to my parents if I needed help filling out my FAFSA, picking a major, dropping or adding classes, buying books, clearing a financial aid hold, or what in the world is the difference between a subsidized or unsubsidized loan.

The first semester or so in college, I thought I was in a disadvantaged compared to some of my classmates. Most of their parents had some type of college education and some were even engineers. They can call their mom or dad and ask them a thermodynamics questions. I mean, I could call my parents and ask. And well, I did, once, to be funny since I was so frustrated with my assignment. My dad was like "Rankyne? That sounds like raquiña, seems like you have an itch, go shower." (If you are Dominican, you probably giggled) I eventually saw being a first gen student as a blessing. I just had to work a little harder then they did. I had to seek more resources. Well, EOF had a lot of those.

Resources, resources, resources. USE THEM! EOF provides FREE priority tutoring and study groups. FREE books. FREE snacks (lol, its important). If they do not have the resource in their office, they will find it for you. That's actually guaranteed, well not really, but they never failed me. You also have upperclassmen and alumni as a resource. They can tell you which professor to take and which to not take or answer any professional development questions you may have. We all have your back.

I can probably write a book about how amazing EOF is. As a School of Engineering graduate, I can say that without EOF I would not have graduated college. EOF is truly for life and I am living that everyday!

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[1]https://www.nj.gov/highereducation/EOF/EOF_Eligibility.shtml