EOP first-year student finds her power and voice at Binghamton
Jennessa Perez is a quiet leader, and thanks to EOP and the support she has received through the program — both financial and social — she is beginning to discover herself, her power and her voice.
While she was born in Manhattan, Perez spent most of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, before her family immigrated to the United States when she was about 8 years old. That experience has shaped who she is now in many ways. She describes herself as “very nervous and shy” when speaking publicly — partly because she feels insecure about her ability to speak English eloquently — but that hasn’t stopped her aspirations of being a lawyer and addressing the racism present in our legal system and issues around immigration law.
As a high schooler in the Bronx, she was involved in ROTC and played musical instruments. As a senior, she was invited to co-teach a class for younger students that focused on overcoming stereotypes and subsequently internalized negative thought patterns placed upon minorities. And she was involved with a youth activist program through the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU). Perez and her peers spoke about the issues they saw in their community and cared about personally: women’s rights, the student pipeline to prison, LGBTQ+ issues, accessibility for individuals with disabilities and more. These are issues she is still passionate about, and she would like to continue to be involved in advocacy movements while she’s here in Binghamton, but it has been difficult.
As a first-year, first-generation college student —she is currently a Harpur College undeclared major — she has faced many changes and challenges. In addition to navigating the transition to college life and a heavier academic load post pandemic, she has been working up to 20 hours a week at Famous Footwear to pay her bills and supplement the limited financial support her family can give her. This hasn’t left much time to participate in campus activities or feel like she really belongs here. But it’s certainly not a lack of work ethic holding her back from being involved at Binghamton, as evidenced by her success at work.
“I actually got promoted,” she said, “but then I decided to take a step back so I could be more a part of the Binghamton community, because I’ve been focused more on work and less on school.” It’s a hard balance to strike for a teenager.
Perez is clear about one thing, though, and that is the importance of the role EOP has played in her experience thus far. One of her proudest moments this year was being asked to speak at EOP Advocacy Day. As she listened to other current students and alumni speak, it opened her eyes to the far-reaching effects the program has on people from all ages and walks of life.
“It made me realize that the EOP program doesn’t only impact students, it also impacts families,” she said. “My family is impacted by the EOP program and the help that I have been able to get from it. EOP serves everybody. It serves a community of people.”
Perez is grateful for the support and access to the tools she needs to be successful.
“On my days off I have a schedule,” she said. “One of the good things about the EOP summer program [the Binghamton Enrichment Program, or BEP] was that it taught me a lot about time management. It would not have been possible without my academic counselor in BEP. During the summer program I was a little unorganized when it came to my studies. I used to procrastinate a lot — I kind of still do, but much less than in high school by managing my time and using the resources that were given to me in the EOP summer program.”
Perez also met with an academic coach who was influential in changing her mindset to be more proactive and focused on taking ownership of her level of success.
“For example, if I was doing bad, it was always, ‘I was trying my best’ — that’s what I would say to myself,” she said. “Or I would think a professor wasn’t doing his part or accommodating students like he should be. That’s how my thinking changed. I went from, ‘I’m trying,’ to ‘I need to do better for myself.’”
The EOP Book Fund Endowment has also been instrumental in her ability to succeed.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have been able to afford my books if I didn’t have that EOP check,” she said. “It’s a struggle for a lot of students, and I would have been struggling with them. I would have been going out of my way to try to find, basically, illegal pdfs of books. A lot of students resort to that because they’re not able to afford it.”
Perhaps just as important as the financial support is the feeling of connection she finds in being part of EOP. It gives her a space to be herself, share her concerns and insecurities with other students who are in similar positions and talk about issues that are important to her.
“For EOP students and first-generation students, a lot of us struggle feeling like we belong here. Sometimes I feel like I’ll mess up in class, or I won’t know how to pronounce a certain word when other people know how to do it. Or when it comes to research, a lot of students come from private schools or high schools that [gave them the opportunity] to do research in high school.”
Perez said being able to talk to other EOP students about these experiences helps her feel like maybe she does belong here after all.
“If I didn’t have EOP,” she said, “I feel like I wouldn’t be able to express my emotions or connect to other people. But instead, when I entered college, I already had a community waiting for me.”