Previous editions: 2019, 2020

SCHOLAR FEATURES

From the beginning, Yamira Patterson (’21), knew college was the goal. Their first thought: become a lawyer.

The first year of the AHS Empowerment Program and our College Readiness curriculum centers around self-discovery; Hammies embark on a journey of self-reflection as they make plans for their senior year of high school and begin applying for colleges that best-fit their goals, abilities, and interests.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a lawyer — certainly not to Patterson, a high school senior in Florida — but something about that first choice didn’t sit right with them.

Reaching “College Ready” required seeing how their values aligned with their future, potential colleges, and career paths.

“At first, I downplayed it,” Patterson said. “I knew [college] was going to be a lot...[but] I lacked the nitty-gritty details and didn’t have a lot of support going in.”

Thankfully, this past summer changed that for Patterson as they joined their fellow 2021 Hammies at New York Leader Week (NYLW).

Over the course of the week, Scholars receive comprehensive, tailored assistance in understanding the complexities of the application and financial aid process. Hammies workshop college essays and work one-on-one with AHS’ College Admissions Counselor Kelly Herrington and Financial Aid Counselor Lynell Engelmyer.

“I didn't expect [New York Leader Week] to be that much fun,” Patterson said. “It gave me a group of friends all going through the same process together. Being surrounded by others who are just as driven, but who had a lot of the same issues, was really refreshing.”

But Patterson’s journey didn’t end after NYLW.

“College admissions is a reflective process,” Patterson said. “Writing ‘why you want to go here; what are you interested in’ essays got me thinking about what I actually wanted long-term.”

Spending time with these prompts, being honest with themselves, led Patterson to see how being a lawyer didn’t match-up with what they wanted for their future.

At the time, Patterson was reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. A book that, according to Patterson, blends historical fiction and personal narrative, filling it with literary imagery, symbolism, and strong themes of family and belonging.

“I thought to myself, I could teach this!” Patterson said. “I’ve always loved my English classes [and] the more I started reading about the education landscape of America — this was also during the time of anti-critical race theory — the more I thought, you know what, I can go into this.”

And so, with the help of Engelmyer and their newfound sense of direction, Patterson dove back into researching and applying to colleges.

As Patterson finishes out their senior year of high school, reaching this inflection point reminded them of their biggest achievement — perseverance.

“’The best thing that women like us can learn is to endure,’” Patterson quotes from “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khalid Hosseini, and then continues:

"I’m grateful to be a part of AHS; learning perseverance is my greatest accomplishment and the greatest thing I could’ve done for myself. Enduring, but then, at the same time, learning to persevere through it and find joy — even in times of despair. I’ve learned to pick myself up and keep going."

For incoming freshmen, transitioning to college from high school is often the first time they’re faced with innumerable unknowns, choices, and new — but exciting — situations. Almost all of our Scholars are first-generation students, meaning this transition may be one they navigate without family precedent. But, just as they navigated the college application process with the aid of the Hamilton Scholars Empowerment Program, so too do our Hammies have the backing of AHS during their transition to college.

Gavin Scott (’20), a freshman at Columbia University in New York City, said that his primary worry when moving away from his small hometown in Oklahoma was what it would be like going from being surrounded by family to suddenly being on his own. But, Scott said that once he got to New York, he realized he wasn’t alone.

“I remember when I joined AHS and Lynell Engelmyer shared how another Hammie visited an area and just asked [the HamFam], ‘Hey, can I crash on someone’s couch?’,” Scott said. “You don’t find that anywhere else — I realize that I’m not alone — through Hamilton I have that big family!”

In addition to realizing he had an entire national network of fellow Scholars to rely on, Scott said his time during Seattle Leader Week also smoothed his transition.

Seattle Leader Week, held during the summer between Scholar’s senior year of high school and freshman year of college, equips Hammies with support, information, and skills necessary to successfully transition — including establishing short- and long-term goals, first-time budgeting in college, and discussing social or political issues commonly experienced on campuses.

“Transitioning took dropping my fear to be willing to jump into the culture,” Scott said. “AHS puts you in a cohort of folks going through the same thing as you, at the same time; talking with Hammies who understood made it easier.”

Despite Seattle Leader Week going virtual again this year, Scott said that his time spent with fellow cohort members after curriculum calls and bonding helped reinforce the notion he wasn’t alone.

Additionally, Scott said he worked closely with Financial Aid Counselor Lynell Engelmyer — who lives in New York — to prepare for situations his small hometown hadn’t ever shown him before.

“AHS prepares you for things you definitely don’t think about,” Scott said. “I had innumerable meetings with Lynell — even to go over basics like ‘How does one even get to New York’ — [things] that once you encounter what the curriculum was teaching, you realize how lucky you are that [AHS] taught you to prepare for.”

For Scott, he says that transition taught him a lesson that he can do whatever he puts his mind to, rather than only what has been offered or shown to him. Transition is taking the cards into his own hands, rather than letting them be dealt out.

Next, Scott will looks to continue exploring potential major related interest areas as he finishes out his freshman year and proceeds to Year 3 of the AHS Empowerment Program: Leadership & Service.

If you asked Youbin Park | 박유빈 (‘19) what leadership meant to them prior to joining AHS’ Empowerment Program, they would’ve pointed to the loudest voice in the room.

“I thought [leadership] was about having a position of authority and power — being the first to choose how to act, already knowing what to do, and then making those calls,” Park said. “Now, I know it’s about finding people’s strengths and connecting them; leadership is taking care of the people [you lead].”

The first thing that strikes you when meeting Park, a Criminal Justice and Psychology double major at Columbus State University in Georgia, is their intentionality in carving out time. That time is often spent working in their community: Park is a Korean tutor to other immigrant families and Americans working in Korean communities, Editor in Chief of Momentum Undergraduate Research Journal, Justice for the Student Government Association, and Assistant Director of the Creative Cougar Coalition.

But in all this, to Park, a leader’s focus isn’t on the outcome, the sum of a community’s parts, or one’s own output, but rather, how they can build and foster growth in others to help them realize their potential, something Park says they lacked in any mentorship growing up.

As the oldest of their family who immigrated from Korea to the U.S., Park said their parents weren’t in a position to hold the authority of being a parent with the difficult language barrier.

“A lot of times, instead of looking for mentorship, I had to become one,” Park said. “I always wanted someone to be there for me — to give me a helping hand and help me figure out how to navigate this or that — I think internally I still chase after that person.”

Today, about to enter their fourth year in the AHS Empowerment Program, Park continues to exercise mentorship based leadership while learning from fellow Hammies, AHS staff and their own experience.

“Today I have great mentors...honestly, the AHS community has shown me what leadership looks like from different people, different ages, and different backgrounds,” Park said. “Leadership doesn’t always look like standing in front of a large audience projecting your voice over everyone — sometimes it’s those soft one-one-one moments, meeting individual people and their individual needs.”

On the horizon, after completing their double major, Park plans to attend law school while completing a dual degree in psychology. Park hopes to bring these two fields together to find alternative solutions to the prison industrialization complex in the U.S. to instead centers the people and humanity lost behind the crime.

Scholarship programs typically focus on just that — scholarship and getting the student to college. What sets Alexander Hamilton Scholar’s Empowerment Program apart is that we stick with our Hammies during their transition from high school to college, and then, from college to their next step — typically career, grad school, or a service-oriented gap year.

Throughout a Scholar’s time in the program, our curriculum actively encourages Hammies to take ahold of their path forward, empowering them to lead with authenticity as they prepare to enter a post-undergraduate environment as young changemakers.

For Daniella Passariello (’18), a junior at Georgetown University studying Business and Global Affairs with a minor in Environmental Studies, getting ready for her career took being mentored in what authenticity looked like in the workforce.

“As a junior, I hear ‘career readiness’ way more often,” Passariello said. “To me, it’s making sure you are prepared for your future and doing what it takes to form your story and make sure you become the person who will be that successful person you want them to be.”

Passariello says thinking about the ways she’s growing into the person she wants to be has been a constant thought on her mind — how she defines growth and how it influences her story. To Passariello, you have to know yourself before you can bring your full, authentic self.

This past summer, Passariello attended Texas Leader Weekend (TLW); an intensive weekend that includes a focus on preparing Scholars for the workplace through leadership training, mentorship, and career-oriented networking. It was there, during a session on polishing your resume, that Passariello had a realization:

“During job applications and interviews my upper-hand is to be authentically myself,” Passariello said. “It clicked; I just have to bring Daniella into the room — that’s giving it my best, and if I don’t get it, then that space wasn’t meant for me.”

Previously, Passariello remembers having a number of misses during her sophomore year as she applied to competitive internships. Despite working hard on her materials, she couldn’t figure out why she was being repeatedly rejected.

“It was an a-ha moment,” Passariello said. “After I starting bringing my authentic self into the room, I started to see acceptances — including some really big [internships] that I’m excited for.”

One such acceptance was an internship as a Fixed Income Analyst at Jefferies, something Passariello feels she wouldn’t have gotten without the support and focus on self-reflection that AHS infuses into every aspect of the Empowerment Program.

Looking forward, Passariello says that while her future after college isn’t 100% figured out, getting to speak with Hamilton alum during the Grad- and Gap-Year panels at TLW has given her a lot of clarity in envisioning herself after college. And, that no matter what she decides on, she’ll be bringing her all to everything.

A lot can happen in five years. The time from high school to college, and then from college to career or to graduate school, can be an exciting — if not drastic — time of change for a Hammie.

Because the AHS Empowerment Program sticks with Scholars during these transitions, planning is a key element to students succeeding.

For Hammies, long-term planning can be overwhelming; one of the biggest growth points for Scholars is writing their Personal Development Plan (PDPs).

The PDP asks Scholars to incorporate their self-developed vision, mission, and goals, into a single narrative set seven years in the future — to plan backwards from that point — and for Theo Houck (’17) this was a struggle.

At Seattle Leader Week, in his second year of the program, the farthest Houck got was planning for his next year of school.

“I’ve always been very ‘in the moment,’ trusting that the right opportunities find their way to me,” Houck, a senior at Pacific Lutheran University, triple-majoring in Environmental Studies, Global Studies in Transnationalism, as well as Decolonization and Indigenous Studies, said. “While writing [the PDP], I had a lot of trouble thinking that far in the future and allowing myself to make plans about the future.”

After sharing his single-year plan, Houck said he remembered getting a feedback card from fellow 2017 Hammie Tyra Edgehill-Parker.

“The card said, ‘I really hope you can figure out how to imagine the future someday — I want that for you,’” Houck said. “That took me aback. I hadn’t thought [planning] was something that I could try to change — or that it was something I wanted to try and change.”

That card, Houck said, is something he’s held on to since. To him, imagining even imagining the future was really impactful, and it helped catalyze his own growth.

Houck started planning again in 2020 — not for graduation, but to study abroad in his junior year. Then, the pandemic happened.

“It felt like a confirmation that making plans meant it wouldn’t work out,” Houck said. “But I realized, getting through the pandemic, that I couldn’t have avoided that by not planning.”

Out of a ruined plan, Houck realized he had something that ‘not planning’ couldn’t give him — a starting point. Having no plan would’ve left him floundering, Houck said. In the end, Houck attended an online program through Oxford in the spring of 2021

Then, he made another plan: Costa Rica — even if it gets canceled again.

Houck still doesn’t feel like the strongest of planners, but he’s shared how proud of reaching this point, and, that he couldn’t have gotten here without the support of AHS and his mentor Bre Legan (’13, former staff).

“Most of all, I’m most proud of the work I’ve done to love myself and the person that I’m becoming,” Houck said. “I am always becoming — it’s an ongoing process.”

At AHS, our mission is to empower high-achieving, underserved young leaders to thrive in college and beyond; our vision is a community of ethical leaders who break barriers to build an equitable society.

When selecting students to join, we look for those likely to take the hands-on mentorship and network of support — much like Hamilton had — to be, in turn, an agent of positive change in their communities.

Emmanuel Berrelleza (’16), a 2021 Government and English studies undergraduate from Dartmouth, is one such agent of change, teaching at his previous high school before pursuing a degree from Harvard Law School.

During his time at Dartmouth, Berrelleza said he explored traditional routes in the private sector, participating in internships across fields — banking, consulting, hedge funds; but, his constant drive was what would make the most immediate impact in his community.

“I’m from Las Vegas — I love my city, I love the people — my community made me who I am; so I always thought, what’s the best way to impact my community?” Berrelleza said. “I didn’t see that happening [immediately] in the private sector, so I decided to be a teacher.”

This shift towards teaching, Berrelleza shared, came from his time during academic breaks during college when he’d be invited back to Las Vegas to speak in high schools to students about his journey in college and the Hamilton Empowerment Program.

“I was really drawn to that classroom energy; young minds are eager to absorb things,” Berrelleza shared. “The best way to put all my experiences to use was to pay it forward to my students.”

With his mind focused on impact, teaching fit perfectly. Before graduating, Berrelleza was accepted to Harvard Law on the premise of pursuing education law — so teaching English at his old high school, spending time in his community, made sense to him.

From his time as a Scholar, Berrelleza felt the importance of building a sense of community with his fellow Hammies. During Seattle Leader Week, Berrelleza remembers when his cohort sat down for the story circle.

“It was initially very simple — what’s your name, where are you from, what are you studying,” Berrelleza said. “But it quickly became a space for vulnerability; [Hammies] shared their experiences and the adversities they faced. It made me realize that being low income and first-gen is multifaceted and that there are a diverse range of experiences.”

To Berrelleza, sharing that experience with his HamFam community helped him realize the importance of nuance in the classroom.

“With my students, even though we’re all in the same classroom and live within a few miles of the school, everyone goes home to completely different things,” Berrelleza said. “And, as a teacher, you are at the center of it all. You’re responsive to your students, but also to the administrators. Every policy can impact your students in multiple ways.”

In building community with his students, Berrelleza says he’s garnering the kind of valuable experience to make a difference in his community through education law. Looking forward, Berrelleza says his next focus of impact is ensuring transparency and accountability between schools and their communities.

Nazshonnii Brown-Almaweri (’12) says her community is shifting. For herself, she sees how connections from her time at AHS, Union College, and now working at the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust in Oakland, all feed back into each other.

As a graduate from Maybeck High School in the early 2010s, Brown remembers when California’s Department of Education released statistics showing the dropout rate was two times the state average (KQED.org, 2011). According to Brown, when she was a sophomore and junior, first joining AHS, people used to think that ‘Even if I finish high school, I’m not going to college.’

“Kids weren’t interested in college — we didn’t have the resources or tools,” Brown said. “Now, I’m coming back to my community and people are leaving high school with a firm plan — either continuing their education or doing something [like trade school] that makes sure they’re set for their adult life.”

To Brown, it’s an exciting shift to see in her community — a community she’s glad to have recently come back to after attending Union College on the East Coast.

It was during her senior year, after coming back from studying abroad, that Brown found herself in want of community; the extra term she was making-up was isolating, Brown said, as her fellow seniors had already graduated.

“I was by myself, trying to figure out what my next move was,” Brown said. “I had advisors, professors, and was close to Lynell Engelmyer’s house — so I had a smaller support network; a small community outside of my original one and hometown.”

With their support, Brown worked briefly for Union after graduating with her Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, and Studio Arts — but knew she couldn’t do that forever.

Knowing this, it was her push to move back home. And, according to Brown, she knew her community supported her staying or going.

When she finally did return, Brown worked with various organizations, all focused on community; first the American Indian Child Resource Center, Global Communication, Education & Arts, and now as a Land Team Member for the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust in Oakland, making sure that Indigenous leadership is at the forefront of rematriation and land stewardship work.

In reflecting on this journey, Brown sees a clear connection to her own work in community and AHS’ mission to empower high-achieving, underserved young leaders to thrive in college and beyond.

“I’m doing the same thing [as AHS] by paying it forward,” Brown said. “Speaking at Leader Week panels, reconnecting with my Hammie mentee, and bringing my own knowledge in STEM to inspire youth to get involved with it; I’m able to bring back knowledge to my community that wasn’t here previously.”

Looking to the future, Brown will continue being in community and is professionally interested in more knowledge sharing teaching workshops with both youth and educators.

“I have the knowledge, but having the support of my hometown and AHS community gives me that affirmation and encouragement,” Brown said. “All I need to do now is set out and do it!”

Lifegiving. Be it through application judging, being a guest speaker, mobilizing fellow cohort members, or one of the many other alum activities, lifegiving is how Alumni Board Vice President Erika So (’09) sees reconnecting with Hamilton Scholars as an alum.

“Staying involved with the community — looking over applications, interacting with Hammies — it’s lifegiving and inspiring every time,” So said. “I know what a special experience [being a Hammie] is, and so for me, the Alumni Board creates a space for me to continue supporting Hammies, future Hammies, and Hammie alums!”

So, a 2014 Environmental Science graduate from UC Berkeley, clearly isn’t a stranger to the HamFam. As a full-time teacher and Happiness Coach, So founded her business, Begin Branching Out, as a continuation of the youth empowerment she experienced as a Hammie.

In addition to past work with Hammies and AHS staff, So supports teachers, administrators, and university advisors across the country through teaching time management relationships and mindsets — or, as So puts it — a focused version of Hamilton’s mission and vision, specifically geared towards self-care and carving out space for rest and play.

“I feel like I embody the Hamilton mission,” So said. “I was empowered to support other people who really want to do well in the world, but are having a hard time doing that; I help people feel fully energized — that they’re taking time for themselves — to really show up for both their communities and themselves.”

However, according to So, this self-care focus was first born out of personal need.

In her first five years of teaching, So shared that she constantly ran on empty and struggled to take care of herself, committing rather to ensuring everyone else was okay — from students, family, friends, and colleagues.

“Prioritizing everyone else jeopardized the quality of person I was showing up as,” So said. “I was so stressed that I’d be crying, or yelling at work; sometimes I couldn’t sleep or would be really, really exhausted — and I’d even snap at friends or family.”

Frustrated with how she treated those she cared about, So knew something needed to change.

So was reminded of a Seattle Leader Week activity where Hammies outlined themselves on paper and wrote how they interacted with various parts of life like finances, personal relationships, community, etc.

It was that visual, and return visits through AHS’ Empowerment Program, that helped So form her own mission, vision, and values. Having space to reflect and plan, with the occasional return visit, is something that So now incorporates into coaching her own clients.

“Having space to reflect and create space for rest and play was something I felt ashamed about growing up,” So said. “Now it empowers me to continue serving my community as such an active Hammie alum.”

For our Scholars, disruption continues to be the norm since the pandemic began in 2020. Our newest Scholars are using our college counseling, admissions, and scholarship services as never before. Many of our Hamilton Scholars enrolled in college continue to experience virtual classes with the same tuition costs.

Colleges have cut back on other forms of financial aid too, creating more hardships for these future leaders. To complicate matters further, many Scholars and their parents/guardians continue to face increased unemployment, housing insecurity, and food scarcity due to COVID-19. Since starting the Emergency Fund, we’ve distributed over $38,106 to assist with food scarcity, secure housing, medical bills, DACA applications, and accessible technology.

Even so, the need for these emergency funds and our services grow: last semester, one scholar contracted COVID-19 while on campus, resulting in extreme medical concerns that were not covered by insurance — Hamilton Scholars was able to lean-in during this critical time with emergency funds. Furthermore, one of our Scholars faced short term homelessness due to a necessary departure from an abusive home situation; Hamilton Scholars was there to help locate housing and provide emergency funds for other resources.