Saved by O. Chem         

Located in Glendale, CA, Herbert Hoover High School welcomes students who just arrived to the United States with a great ESL program that includes not only English classes but also history and science classes to maximize student’s development in their new home, America. Among those students was Jose Manuel Ruiz Ruiz, who arrived as a junior from Michoacan, Mexico. Being raised in a small community with less than 1000 habitats and going to a school with more than 2000 students was intimidating and to make it worse there was always racial tension between Hispanics and Armenians with Armenians making up more than 60 percent of school population. Succeeding in a high school with such conditions seemed impossible but Jose was determined to not only get a high school diploma but be eligible to go to a four year university and become a biochemist.

            Discouragement came from the least expected places when trying to be place in higher level math course by recommendation from math teacher but was rejected by counseling office and was told to relax a little because no matter how much he tried, he would not pass the math, English and technology exams required for graduation by Glendale Unified School District and will have to go to high school one extra year as a super senior.  Wasting one year was not an option and he didn’t give up until placed on higher level courses being the best student in most of them.  Counseling office was proved wrong when the time to take the exit came as Jose managed to pass both math and technology exams the first time and only requiring a second time to pass English exam. With a strong GPA and exit exams out of the way, finishing high school on time and being qualified for a four year university was very likely.

            After spending the summer taking classes, an even more challenging senior year awaited with extra classes to be taken and successfully completed to keep his dream alive. On November of 2009, during the first semester of his senior year, Jose got a job at Porto’s bakery and was finally able to support himself and become totally independent. Balancing work and school was not easy and made Jose reconsider the option of going to a community college and the transfer to a four year university to be able to save some money and buy a care and be more prepared.  After a very successful fall semester, Jose was encouraged to apply for Glendale Latino Association Scholarship and he was one of the chosen ones to be interviewed. During the interview, Jose was told that most students seemed more prepared and that they were going to a four year university and asked how could he compete with them. His answer was simple: “I am doing in two years what they are doing in four” panel was left speechless. Panel was very impressed with him that they decided to give him the scholarship being the only student going to a community college in that year to receive it.

            After two very intense years, graduation had arrived and Jose was graduating and not only that, he received a scholarship and several awards from Glendale Latino Association and Adelante Latinos Association. Going to college and having extra money, gave Jose a sense of freedom he never had before and totally forgot about his education to the pint to take a two year break. Coming back to school was not easy, he did not have the discipline to be a top student and struggle to the point of thinking of quitting school again but organic chemistry professor, Asmik Oganesyan noticed that that Jose actually enjoyed chemistry and saw in him potential to be a great scientist by the way in which he understood chemical reactions and his ability to find possible solutions to problems faced in lab. She told Jose about the bridges to the future program that CSULA had and convinced him to be part of it. Currently, Jose is working in Dr. Tunstad research lab and is determined to go back to Glendale Community College and improve his grades to come back next fall as a student and become a chemist.