Big THANK YOU to our initial funders, Rich and Lucy Chen, and our early adopters Lo de Janvry, Linda Burrow, Joanie Lam, Ashwin Sodhi and Sara Beckman!

In our staff meeting today, Ana Rangel (our Destination College Advisor) reported that we have an addition to the itinerary:  Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (or SLO as the locals say)...it is on our way to Southern California and we have to eat lunch somewhere, so why not on campus?!

Speaking of itineraries, here are the colleges and universities on this tour, after SLO:

University of San Diego

San Diego State University

Claremont McKenna College

UC Irvine

UC Riverside

"As a student in the YEAH program, I attended the college tours my sophomore and junior year in YEAH.  Both tours were fun and enlightening. I know I will be attending one of the universities I visited on the YEAH College Tour.

The tour did make a difference in my feelings about each school, especially because it gave me the opportunity to see the campuses on a personal level! I have accepted to SF State so far and I am waiting to hear from the others. I don't think I would've been looking at all of them except SF and Chico!

- Jake (Class of 2014)

Lucas Abbott, YEAH Director and fearless tour developer, talks about the benefits of the college tour. 

DeShawn went on last year's tour and had the great pleasure of being chaperoned by then MBA student Larry Pier.  DeShawn talks about his experience on the tour and interest in studying Engineering.

Larry talks about the tour and the value proposition of investing in the tour.  A fun fact about Larry:  He graduated with the most volunteer hours of anyone in his class (and remember he was in school full time!), all of his hours dedicated to YEAH.  In his role as a working professional, he continues to volunteer as a mentor.  Thanks Larry!

He graduated from high school in Antioch and YEAH in 2006.  Accepted to numerous colleges and universities, he chose to attend UC Santa Cruz,  Ernesto graduated with Honors in 2010 with a BA.BS in Economics and Earth Sciences. His career path reads like his degrees, with experience ranging from a Hydrologic Technician with the U.S. Forest Service to a Financial Services Representative with First Investors Corporation.

He has stayed in touch with YEAH and Haas, and consulted with Kim Guilfoyle in Haas' PhD program.  Before starting his current Masters Degree program in Economics at New York University, Ernesto was an Economic Intern at the Office of the Attorney General at for the State of New York.

Ernesto said that he is interested in development work and possibly pursing his PhD.  He believes YEAH made a difference in his life.  It gave him an activity to be involved in, and this has carried through his career and opened him up to applying to new things. 

He also believes in paying it foward, and has made a contribution to YEAH's first crowd funding tour.

Haas alumni Colin Da Cunha has been working with YEAH youth since 2006. As a mentor during is tenure at the Haas School of Business, Colin knew that he wanted to do more for the YEAH youth...if only they had access to more resources, they could exceed his wildest expectations. Colin is one of those Haas graduates who embodies our defining principle, Beyond Yourself. As a newly minted grad with an intense new job as a consultant at Deloitte, Colin and YEAH High School Director Lucas Abbott began meeting to talk about an idea Colin had to provide additional support to YEAH students....over and above their time with the Saturday Academy. Fast forward to 2010, and the RISE Fellows Academy was born. Knowing the importance of responsibility from a young age, Colin conceived of a high expectation, high support program. The acronym means Responsibility Inspires the Strive for Excellence (RISE). For the past four years, in is free time and on Saturday's, Colin has been developing the program. The mission of the program is to prepare RISE Fellows for success in a knowledge economy by focusing on three core objectives: 1) Leverage the fundamentals of business and entrepreneurship to challenge students to think critically, analytically and strategically. 2) Develop skills that will empower students to excel in the professional world: public speaking, interviewing, business writing, presentation delivery, networking, teamwork and leadership. 3) Inspire students to pursue their professional aspirations by introducing them to notable business leaders, entrepreneurs and companies. Fellows receive additional academic support, in-depth professional development opportunities and expanded support from a revolving door of CEOs, entrepreneurs and community leaders that Colin brings in to meet with his Fellows. These Fellows are also gaining practical real world experience as they work collaboratively on cases ranging from Corporate Social Responsibility and Social Entrepreneurship to Business Strategy. Furthermore, Fellows have had the opportunity to visit leading companies in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. "As I reflect on my involvement with the Center for Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH), I am overcome with feelings of joy, gratitude and hope. The students I work with continue to amaze me year after year with their insatiable thirst for knowledge and their commitment to be the best. Their enthusiasm and passion inspired me to take on a new challenge, the creation of the RISE Fellows Academy, a rigorous program focusing on academic, personal and professional development. I am excited about the possibilities of this program and I am looking forward to my continued involvement with YEAH in the years to come."

--Colin Da Cunha, Founder, RISE Fellows Academy

Our first crowd funding campaign has had a slow start and we are only half way there with three days to go, but Margaret Meade's famous quote is how we roll:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has!

Thank you to our recent donors, including:

Chris Holbrook 

Michael Greenberg

Amy Dinh

Marijo Racciatti

Don Fraser 

Eileen Rider

Jennifer Kurkoski

Tom Lee

Kelly Wilson

Kathy Andrews

Carolyn Crockett 

Jo Mackness

Stephanie Noon

Alisha Manandhar

Ernesto Matal Sol

Colin Da Cunha

Alex Tsai

Jovan Sankar-Paul

Miguel Rivas

Kellie McElhaney

Mikhail Shneyder

We steamed out of Berkeley headed for the central coast and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. We had a great tour and tour guide of this beautiful campus. It was a good warm up for our Day Two where we will hit three colleges in one day!

The drive from SLO to Riverside was loooooong and we were all happy to check in and go to bed!

Day two first destination: University of San Diego!

After our marathon day yesterday with our visit to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the trek east across the state to Riverside, our team was pretty spunky this morning.

We left Riverside this morning at 8:30 for our first destination, University of San Diego.  95 miles, two hours, and another PG-13 movie later, we pulled into the beautiful campus at the top of a hill and canyon in San Diego.  We spent about a half hour with a third year business major named Austin from Las Vegas talking about his experience at USD.  The student volunteer tour guides have been excellent ambassadors, putting a personal and unfiltered face on their college experience.  The YEAH team has been asking a lot of great questions.  They have been inquisitive about everything from academics to college life and adjustment to college.  The tour was fast, and the Spanish Colonial buildings beautiful.  As with yesterday at Cal Poly SLO, the chaperones overheard our students commenting to one another on the lack of diversity on the campus.  They have grown up in the Bay Area and their most extensive college experience has been on Cal's campus.  It was hard not to notice, and also hard not to walk in their shoes with them, and experience their awareness of this matter.

Our second stop at San Diego State University was a big hit.  We spent the first hour meeting with a representative of the Educational Opportunity Program, which is on many campuses and designed to help first generation college students with their transition to college life.  At the end of the tour, two awesome students came in to talk, and it was obvious that they completely connected with our students.  They were both leaders in the Student African American Brotherhood on campus.  One was from the Bay Area and the students were drawn in by his honesty, humor, enthusiasm and boosterism for the school.  At first we thought he wouldn’t be joining us on our walking tour of the college, and I overhead a student say, “a guy like that…you don’t leave behind!”  Fortunately he joined us on the tour!

Our third and final stop of the day was at University of California, San Diego.  UCSD is in La Jolla, perched on a cliff, hilly and expansive and surrounded by massive buildings and beautiful architecture.  Our guide was from a program on campus designed to give first generation college students a perspective on UCSD.  She was passionate about social justice and UCSD, but when our students asked about the percentage of African American and Hispanic students, it was hard to wonder why all this passion hasn’t translated into a more diverse student population.

The library at UCSD is a massive building, incredibly impossible looking architecture was aptly named the Geisel Library after its namesake Theodore Geisel, Dr. Seuss. And as Dr. Seuss wrote in Oh The Places You’ll Go, we send our kids to bed tonight knowing after today’s very full day that,

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own.  And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy (or girl) who'll decide where to go.

For a dramatic change of pace we started Day Two of the dream tour at the Claremont Colleges.  We started early and the five campuses were pretty deserted (the five colleges include Claremont McKenna College, Pomona College, Harvey Mudd College, Scripps College and Pitzer College).  The colleges also include the Claremont Graduate University, Keck Graduate Institute, Claremont School of Theology, and the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management .  The best part of the tour was meeting up with YEAH graduate Kerry Chin who is a fourth year computer science and engineering major at Harvey Mudd College.  It was great to hear her perspective on college life.  The other good thing about visiting the Claremont Colleges for the students was to see a campus setting that didn’t work for them!  Seriously.  It was a strong counterpoint to the favorite so far:  San Diego State University.

The most exciting part of the tour was when Tiara, Ana and I received simultaneous texts from Lucas Abbott that his daughter had been born!  Baby Abbott (who may still not have a name yet) is a beautiful, alert, round-cheeked baby and the students screamed and cheered when they heard the news!  I normally don’t work directly with students as most of my job is fundraising and administration, but with Lucas’ paternity leave, I had the good fortune of stepping in for him and basically supporting the amazing work of Ana Rangel and Tiara Johnson.

We boarded the bus and headed from Claremont to UC Irvine and a surprise hit for the team.  UC Irvine was bustling with students, and appeared much more diverse than the other campuses we have visited, with the exception of Cal Sate University San Diego.  Our tour guides were awesome and enthusiastic and we walked a mile (in their shoes) in a big circle around campus.  The students were so engaged and enthusiastic about the tour and tour guides that they even did the UCI mascot Anteater’s cheer!  The students were definitely buzzing when we boarded the bus for our afternoon of decompression time at the Irvine Spectrum.

Irvine is a largely planned and affluent community, so it should come as no surprise that it has a spectacular and massive outdoor shopping mall.  The students enjoyed three hours of shopping until they dropped.  The perfect finish to a full day was an evening in the pool and Jacuzzi, and playing cards in the lobby.

Our last stop on our Dream Tour itinerary was UC Riverside, and it was the ideal place to cap this tour.  As part of the UC system, I sensed an affinity with the UCs coming from the students.  It was obvious at UCI, and to a lesser degree, at UCSD.  And even better, UC Riverside is the most diverse of the UCs.  We spent an hour with a student panel in the Chicano Student Programs office.  They had powerful stories to tell of their non-traditional journeys to college, and big dreams for their future.  The campus tour was similar to UCI…well organized, informative and enthusiastic.

I have to acknowledge the wonderful staff that I had the great fortune of working with on this tour.  Ana Rangel, YEAH’s new college adviser, and Tiara Johnson, YEAH’s new middle school coordinator, are both recent grads of UC Berkeley, themselves first generation college graduates.  They did a fabulous job of planning and organizing this tour under the direction of Lucas Abbott, the YEAH Director.  Olive Davis, YEAH’s former Middle School Director and now B-BAY director—and a seasoned college tour chaperone—gave us all sage advice and helped with the planning as well.  Priscilla Luu, our wonderful work-study student who leaves us this year as she graduates UC Berkeley, has also been part of the planning of this and previous tours.  Ana and Tiara always struck the right note with the students, and we are all fortunate to have them on our team and working with YEAH youth advising them on their path to college.

The last day of our dream tour started in the hotel lobby with a surprise birthday card and a cupcake from the group for my birthday!  It was sweet to have them be so considerate, and the wishes on the card were another testament to how thoughtful these students are.  I have to say that it is easy for me to feel concern with the news of the world…in my backyard in Oakland, or on the other side of the planet...but after four days and hundreds of miles with this amazing group of young adults, I am so hopeful about our future!  And they ARE the future, in every way!  They represent the demographics of the future—not just California, but eventually the nation.  They are mostly under represented minorities, and from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds and countries of origin.  They are very conscious of race and diversity, in a way that speaks to their confidence in themselves as college bound individuals.  They have a vision for their place in the world.  They want to find the right college campus that welcomes their diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and makes the way as smooth and welcoming as possible. 

We were safely driven up and down (or rather down and up!) the state by our bus driver, Manga.  Eleven juniors, six sophomores, and one freshman joined Ana, Tiara and me on this tour.  They have all taken to taking care of our freshman—not that he needed it, but he certainly appreciated it.  They have been accountable to each other and caring and respectful of one another.  And they have been engaged, curious, and shown great humor.  What more could we ask for from the next generation?