Daisy Benitez • The Power of a College Education

(Staff Engineer, Brown & Caldwell || GA USA)

“My parents immigrated to the US from Mexico in 1985 following the Mexico City earthquake. I grew up in a low-income, primarily black and brown neighborhood. My parents didn’t go to college, but they knew it was a foundation for a better life. I applied to QuestBridge, which is a scholarship for high-achieving, low-income students. When I applied, the requirement was that your family made less than $80,000 per year. At the time I thought, ’Oh god, how many families actually make $80,000?’ — my parents’ combined income was $40,000. Now that I’m older and know what starting salaries are for engineers, I realize just how big the financial gap was.

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I never realized how deeply ingrained in me my Mexican culture was until I got to USC. I heard about the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and got involved right off the bat. It gave me a home away from home — a group of individuals who understood my background, navigating a college system as a first generation or low-income student or both. That was so powerful. We had volunteering events to bring in students from the community who were also black and brown. We showed them engineering activities for a day. We had an actual chemical engineer talk to them — all these things I didn’t have and feel I could have really used. It was empowering to be the role model I always wished I had.

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I was fortunate that my parents were supportive of me going to college — I know that’s not true for all first-generation women because of the traditional values of being a wife and homemaker in our culture. I saw that firsthand with my cousins — they didn’t go to college because they didn’t have the support they needed. I look at my life now, and even having the title of Staff Engineer blows my mind. I graduated with my Bachelor’s and Master’s loan-free through scholarships and fellowships. I’m making twice as much as my parents made. I’m working for a water and wastewater engineering consulting company whose goal is to provide people with access to clean water — it’s a heartwarming feeling. It’s so powerful what a college education can do.”