Youth Quote Search

• Challenges and Barriers
• Naysayers and bullying

“I mean, I talked to them about it, but they don’t really seem very invested in my future…We’ve never really gotten along super-duper well. We’ve had our fights, and we never really had a resolution from them. So at this point…we are kind of mutualistically like benignly positive with each other. Like we respect each other, but from a distance. So that’s pretty much cool with me. I’m going to go off to Cleveland, and I’m going to be on my own. And then after that, I don’t really see myself coming back down to New Orleans to be with them that much. Like I might stay in contact with them, but they’re not really a huge influencing factor in my life.”

• Challenges and Barriers
• Discrimination and Bias

“I already picked tomatoes. I already did what I had to do… so I’ve got to work smarter. I’ve got to beat this system. It is like a system. For the Mexicans, the Hispanics that is all they know, agriculture. I want to be able to beat that.”

• Perceptions of the term 'social capital'
• Relationships, Connections & Networking

“Yeah, just kinda going off what [Participant] said with having that. It’s knowing who you wanna know. Knowing who you wanna talk to. Knowing who you wanna talk to; just kinda like everybody just gets you to that place where you wanna be, so.”

• Reflections on Focus Group Experience
• Takeaways

“At the end of the first day, I am excited but still a little uncertain exactly what the discussion will entail.”

• Education
• Perceptions of high school

“I feel high school provided discipline that would be required in order to be successful in college. I do not feel high school had a negative impact. [How did high school provide discipline for you?] I graduated high school in three years instead of four. I took on extra courses to graduate early and to get a head start on college. Taking extra courses while others had more free time took discipline. I had to remain focused because I knew I wanted to go to college.”

• Pathways
• Steps and stages

“My end goal is heart surgeon and research on cancer. Today I put graduating high school and then attending college, so UCI. I am going to have my orientation the end of June. Then I am going to choose my classes—so they are college classes—making new friends and connections with professors, going to office hours. I feel like having friends in college gives you motivation because being alone in college kind of sucks. I imagine it sucks and not having friends, college is difficult in general, so I wouldn’t want to be experiencing that alone since a lot of college students experience all of that stuff or stress or depression. It is better if you are not alone, so that is why they recommend if you dorm your first year so you can make new friends and make connections. Then I put summer classes and a job. Summer classes gets you to graduate early, so that is what I want to do even though it is hard. I am going to be researching, volunteering at hospitals and internships and then graduate. Then going into med school, but in that kind of time in my life I will be making connections at a hospital and be working at a hospital. Those internships that I did before get me a permanent job at the hospital before becoming a real doctor. Graduating med school and then following like fellowship and then residency for the heart surgeon that I want to be. Then research on cancer. Like the internships and the volunteering at a hospital, I know my friend is graduating on Thursday from UCI. She majored in biological sciences. She volunteered at the hospital, and got an internship, and I think she is going to have a job during the summer being a medical assistant or something. I think she is going to take a gap year to save up for med school and get more experience so she can have a better chance of getting into med school. I feel her experience like the way she tells me that [bio] is really hard so you have to put yourself out there all the time like with summer classes, make friends. Universities have so many rich students and their parents, most of the – my friends I have gone to visit UCI. I have seen UCI is known for having over 50 percent Asians at that school. I have gone to those classes, and I have overheard them talking like oh yeah my parents are doctors and if you want – I heard this conversation where they were like oh yeah during the summer I’m going to go internship at my parent’s where they work as doctors. I am just like okay, maybe I will start making friends in that area. That comes into play, making friends and internships at hospitals and making connections.”

• Education
• Perceptions of college and postsecondary

“My grandfather did not go to college and he was happy about this decision [because] he joined the family business and has been relatively successful as he now co-owns the business with his brother…I’m not sure if [not going to college] has necessarily helped him with being successful but I don’t think it is necessary to go to college to be successful.”

• Attributes and characteristics
• Describing Identity

“They are a true reflection of who I am. I strive to always be passionate about what I do and I strive to be better each day.”

• Perceptions of the term 'work'
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“To do something for something in return such as money.”

• Characterizations of a bad job
• Understanding Job/Work/Career

“If you all go to lunch, and you all have parties for work and stuff, you know how they have Christmas parties, if you don’t go, you don’t like your job. If you going to somebody else’s Christmas party instead of your own work, you don’t like your job.”