Salvador Curio-Hernandez : Student Success

Hi, my name is Gabriel. I'm 27 years old.  I'm a second year of Ventura College and  

I'm studying mechanical engineering. When  I was 22, I made some pretty big mistakes  

that ended me up going to prison for a few years. When I got out, I had nothing. I had nowhere to go  

except for back to grandma's house. She welcomed  me with open arms and loved me, and, um, accepted  

me through that whole process in figuring out  what it was that I was gonna do now with my life. 

And, um, I decided that I wanted to go back to  school and I wanted to do mechanical engineering.  

Went out at a limb and I applied for scholarships  and I actually got an amazing scholarship, 

The Gene Haas scholarship as well as the VC  Promise Grant. The VC Promise Grant has been  

a huge help for me, uh, paid for all of  my tuition, and that enabled me to spend  

more time on school and not work as much. It also helped me to get a car, which has  

helped me tremendously. Um, and I'm really, really  appreciative to the donors and to the Foundation,  

and it's been a great year for me because of  that. Coming to live with Grandma gave me a  

second chance, and it gave me an opportunity to  go back to school, to study engineering, to take  

17-18 units a semester, uh, to get straight A's. And now finally after all that hard work to  

get accepted to UC, Berkeley for mechanical  engineering. So thankful for the Foundation  

for the scholarships that they gave me.  Um, it was a huge blessing and made all  

this possible, and I'm just so thankful for  everything that everybody's done for me.