When Renee Maldonado wanted to apply for college, her high school counselor told her she hadn't taken the right courses. When she asked the counselor why she hadn't recommended those courses, she was told, "I didn't think your kind went to college."

Never one to be a victim, Maldonado did go on to college and a career managing diversity and outreach programs. She has just completed her first full year as director of the UC Davis MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement) schools program, working with middle schools in the Vallejo and Woodland Unified School Districts to help educationally disadvantaged children get on track for college.

While blatant discrimination may be rarer now, the children MESA targets face multiple obstacles, Maldonado said, many of which are ramifications of poverty and discrimination. Some problems are academic, such as poor math teaching, while others are more cultural: students and their parents simply have no experience with higher education, what it can offer and how to get it.

"We're focussed on helping students take control of their lives. Students who can problem solve are those who achieve," Maldonado said.

By developing critical thinking and an awareness of alternatives, students are better equipped to overcome obstacles, rather than being discouraged by early setbacks, she said.

The UC Davis K-12 program now has 333 students enrolled in grades six and up. Maldonado expects to have 500 students in the MESA 'pipeline' by the end of the year. A second arm, the MESA Engineering Program (MEP), helps minority and disadvantaged youth cope with college life, providing mentoring, tutoring and support services to help students make it through to graduation.

Percentages suggest program works

Statewide, the 32-year old MESA program reaches more than 32,000 students. Eighty-five percent of MESA's graduating high school seniors go on to college, compared to 50 per cent of all California high school seniors. The program, which targets low-performing schools, not individual students or ethnic groups, is supported by more than 200 tech-based companies, including Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco. It recently won a prestigious "Innovations in American Government "award.

Without these programs, there would be far fewer engineering graduates from minority groups, said James Shackelford, associate dean of engineering at UC Davis. Shackelford has been involved in outreach programs to disadvantaged students for two decades.

MESA works with school administrators and principals to introduce "MESA periods" during the day, Maldonado said. These can be either after-school classes or integrated into existing classes. Typically, one teacher working closely with the program will take 30 students per grade level for the extra class.

The students take part in local and regional "MESA Days" on college campuses, where they compete against other schools and see what a campus is like at first hand.

UC Davis tutors matched to youths

Teacher Anne Holt runs the MESA program at Lee Junior High School in Woodland. The program runs as an after-school science club. UC Davis students come to the school to tutor in math and science.

"The tutors are from the same backgrounds, and they're real good role models for our kids," Holt said. "They see them and say, 'Gee, I could do that.'"

Currently, Holt's students are working on projects such as model cars powered by mousetraps, balsawood gliders and crystal-growing, in preparation for the local pre-MESA Day at UC Davis on March 9. Winning projects will go on to compete against middle schools from across northern California at San Jose State University on April 27. On April 13, UC Davis will host the regional MESA Day for northern California high schools.

At Springstown Middle School in Vallejo, Rosalind Vance has seen participation climb since the school's MESA program began two years ago. With 60 children participating in grades seven through nine, she has a waiting list of kids wanting to sign up. Half of the students in the program are already targeting UC Davis for college applications, she said.

"When they got to see the options and opportunities at UC Davis, they were really excited," she said. "It's an awesome program."

The fact that kids in her MESA classses were able to relate to the UC Davis students who came to tutor them brought home the possibilities of education, Vance said.

"In their minds, they're thinking, 'I can do this too,'" she said.

MESA preps kids for college culture

A major role for MESA is to supply the whole culture of going to college, Holt said. Advice on what classes to take, how to write an application, how to seek financial aid, how to sit a SAT test is all invaluable for children who may be the first in their families to seek higher education.

Vance noted the importance of starting programs in middle school. Students need to go into high school focussed, before they get distracted by other things, she said.

Once MESA's target students get to college, they face a whole new set of obstacles, said Sandra Frye-Lucas, director of the UC Davis MEP center. Those can range from academic problems for students poorly prepared for college-level teaching to feeling isolated in an unfamiliar environment with few peers or role-models from their own background.

MEP helps students break down this isolation by building networks of peers, mentors and friends, Frye-Lucas said. Minority students in an institution like UC Davis have to learn to "mainstream" and not isolate themselves, she said, but MEP can ease the transition. That can range from suggesting somewhere for an African American woman to get her hair done properly, to finding a peer to tutor her in calculus, to introducing her to the local chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers.

Providing an extended family

MEP works extensively with student groups such as NSBE, Pilipino Americans in Science and Engineering and the Chicano and Latino Engineers and Scientists Society, Frye-Lucas said. These societies help students learn about the contributions of their ethnic group to science and engineering and help counteract the pressure to be "cool" rather than "nerdy," she said.

"It provides and opportunity for them to celebrate and use their diversity," Frye-Lucas said.

MEP also gets engineering students in contact with industry in their first year, through internships, scholarships, site visits and job sharing. This means that they could see the applied side of their studies as well as the theory that they are learning in class, Frye-Lucas said.

Rebecca Ramirez is one UC Davis alumnus who benefited from the support of MEP. She originally dropped out of college due to family pressures; 15 years later Ramirez needed more qualifications to progress in her career at Hewlett-Packard. She transferred from Santa Rosa Junior College to UC Davis, majoring in electrical engineering.

As well as continuing to work part-time and raising a family, Ramirez faced a long commute, a heavy course load and a lack of peer role models. Through MEP, she met other students in similar situations and was set up with tutors who had already taken the same courses.

"I was very, very impressed. The support system was great, like a family," she said. Advice from MEP tutors helped her to organize her study program to make the best use of limited time.

Coming full circle

Since graduating in 1998, Ramirez, now an electrical engineer with Cierra Photonics in Santa Rosa, has herself volunteered at local schools for MESA and other similar outreach programs.

For Hispanics, cultural expectations and stereotyping are now more of a problem than outright discrimination, Ramirez thinks.

"Kids aspire to be carpenters or mechanics, things that they are familiar with. They don't have a roadmap for college," she said.

For Vance, changing attitudes to education is key. "If five out of 30 of my students look at education as empowerment, I've done my job," she said.