Dean's List Highlight: Luz Angelica Moreno

2016 Dean’s List Winner Luz Moreno explains how the skills she has learned participating in FIRST programs has changed her perception of herself, what she can accomplish, and her goals for the future.

If you would have asked me five years ago what my plans were for college, I would have laughed and explained to you how college “is just not for me”. I was always told that once I turned fifteen I would become just another number on a graph. I never had college in mind until I started my FIRSTteam back in the fall of 2014. During our first competition with an incomplete robot, a referee asked me my plans for college and I stayed silent because I had no answer to it. What do I say? What should I say? So many thoughts were going through my mind, and not having an answer terrified me. I cannot thank that referee enough, he gave me a pamphlet about the FIRST Scholarship Program and said: “I know you will do great here in the FIRST Tech Challenge, welcome to the family”. He was the first to believe in me. Never would I have realized back then what FIRST has really done for me. Participating in FIRST made me realize the potential I never knew existed. They gave me the support that I never had, they supported a stranger and made her realize that she can go to college.

College was never in my mind until I joined FIRST Tech Challenge, and I fell in love with robots so much that I decided to pursue a career in engineering. One of the hardest things I had to face with this dream was the acceptance of others. Many wanted to change my ideals, explaining that becoming an engineer was a task for someone “better qualified”. However, FIRST has changed that for me, with their support and encouragement I strove to become the strong person I am today. I will be the first person in my family to go to college, a few years ago I would have never thought of applying to college at all! However, I cannot deny how scared I am. After the Dean’s List Summit in Manchester, New Hampshire, I start applying to colleges. I know the road that lies ahead of me will be rough and that many times I will want to give up, but for two years I have been taught to stay motivated to become the innovator, doer, and thinker of tomorrow. Without even realizing it, FIRSTmade me a great leader, a programmer, an innovator, a problem solver and most of all… it created the person that I am today. FIRST changed me in so many ways that I didn’t even believe were possible. I was able to lead a team to Super Regionals, teach kids how to code, build Lego robots, and become a Dean’s List Winner for the FIRST Tech Challenge. After all that, college is just the next chapter in my life that I know now isn’t a dream, it’s a reality.

FIRST have given me the opportunity to meet people from all around the world, explore other states, challenge myself all while giving me the opportunity to further my education. I never asked to be inspired to go to college, countless other tried to bring me down, making me doubt myself, push me to give up before I fail…but not FIRST. Because of FIRST I will be the first in my family to graduate college, the first in my family to get a degree, the first in my family to become… an engineer, and none of this would be possible without the FIRST programs.