Life After MAPCS
Going Away For School?
See Forever’s Alumni Support Staff Makes House Calls
“At See Forever, our responsibility to our students doesn’t end at graduation,” says Alumni Support Coordinator Adriana Rodriguez. “Research has shown that the best performing students – the ones who make it not only to college but all the way through to graduation – are the students who make connections, get involved in campus life, learn how to navigate their campuses, and find their way to make use of the services that are available to them.”
To help students make those connections, Rodriguez has made it her mission to visit MAPCS alumni during their first semester as college students. Her recent travels have taken her to visit MAPCS Class of 2006 graduates in New York, Boston, and Atlanta.
 While in Atlanta, Rodriguez met with Janay Perry and Shonette Balton during their first semester at Clark Atlanta University. She checked on their academic progress, helped connect them with potential mentors in the Atlanta business community, and introduced them to Monica Keys, MAPCS Class of 2002, who is now a Senior at Spelman College after successfully navigating many of the same transitions Perry and Balton are now experiencing.
“My job isn’t about providing a direct service or holding out a lifeline from the students’ high school,” says Rodriguez. “It’s about helping students build a web of people and support services around them once they get to college. We want our alumni to be independent and successful, and part of being independent is knowing how to find the help you need.”
Rodriguez says that many MAPCS students are eager to go away for college and experience new environments, but that they sometimes feel lost once they get there. It is sometimes difficult for students’ families and friends to come visit them, and it can be tricky to find their way around the new campuses, new cities, and new cultures.
So far this year she has also made it Boston to visit Ingrid Nuñez at Fisher College, and to New York to visit Danielle Simmons at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Safari Nicole Williams at the White Plains campus of Berkeley College.
“The students are really proud to be able to show me around their new spaces,” says Rodriguez. “It’s a chance for them to shine a little bit, show off their dorm rooms, and talk about their new life. We talk about their struggles, and we talk about how to find their way to solutions. There’s a reason college campuses have financial aid departments, counseling departments, academic advisors, tutoring programs, and career centers. But you’d be surprised how many students go to college, try to struggle through it on their own, and ultimately get frustrated and give up.”
Rodriguez says she enjoys the visits, and the opportunity to encourage and reassure students that the challenging transition they are experiencing is normal. They are glad to have this unique service and know that it is provided by someone connected to their experiences at MAPCS.
“If a visit from somebody they trust can help put them on a better path and make them feel more confident about the choice to go away to college, than I know my efforts are worthwhile,” says Rodriguez. “Am I going to keep coming back every semester to check in on them? No. I tell them that they are now equipped to handle things without me, and achieve their goals on their own terms.” She pauses, “but because of our outreach efforts the past two years, all of them know if they need us, MAPCS is just a phone call or email away.”
Alumni Spotlight: Monica Keys
“I think if the Monica Keys who grabbed her Maya Angelou diploma a few years ago could see me now, getting ready to graduate from Spelman College, she would be completely shocked that I’d made it through,” says Monica Keys, MAPCS Class of 2002. She will graduate in May with a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and emphasis studies in Criminal Justice. “I can tell you this: It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.”
 Keys has struggled with severe depression and crippling anxiety throughout her life, but says her experiences as a student at MAPCS taught her to let her guard down once in a while, seek out help, and learn to control her own worst enemy.
“All my life, I had really struggled with being able to trust anybody or even trust myself and so there was always something missing in my relationships with other people,” says Keys. “But the teachers I had at Maya Angelou were real, and the relationships we had were real. They were my teachers but they were also my mentors, my friends. That realness and the genuine relationships I had with my teachers definitely helped me become who I am today. When I got to college and things started to fall apart, my experiences at Maya Angelou helped me seek out the counseling services and learning services I needed here.”
Graduating from high school and getting accepted into the college of her dreams was only the beginning, Keys says. In her fantasies about going off to college, all of her problems would melt away once she could get herself into a different environment. But when her best friend was killed during the summer between high school graduation and her first semester at Spelman, she doubted she had the strength to stick to her plan. When her father died of cancer during her first semester at school, she doubted she had the strength to do anything.
“I didn’t want to be down here wasting time and money if I wasn’t going to be able to make it, but I also knew that idle time is never good for me,” says Keys. “I realized that before I could really study anything else, I needed to learn more about myself. I needed to learn how to cope, how to organize my thoughts. I needed to be able to focus, calm myself down, and stay motivated.”
As she worked through her problems with counselors and student support service providers at Spelman, she began to see both a way out and a future for herself. She became fascinated with her introductory studies in Psychology, and a course in Criminal Justice inspired her to start looking into careers in law enforcement. Eventually she combined the two, taking coursework in personality studies, sociology, and forensic science in preparation for a job as a criminal profiler or intelligence analyst.
Keys – who has worked full-time jobs throughout her college career – is now an officer with the Spelman College Department of Public Safety.
“I know that I missed out on a big part of college life because I had to work so hard the whole time just to stay afloat financially, emotionally, and academically,” says Keys. “But I also grew up really fast and learned a lot about managing my time, my money, and myself. Finding that focus has been really important to me.”
After graduation, Keys says she is planning to go into a law enforcement academy, and is currently weighing offers from the Atlanta Police Department and the U.S. Marshall’s Service. She says she was first drawn to Spelman because of the promise of “sisterhood bonds,” and that her research through the Spelman Career Center and its vast alumni network confirms the promise is true: For every career option she has explored, she has found a Spelman sister ready to help pave the way.
Before she moves on, however, Keys says she has a new sisterhood role she is excited about: Two recent MAPCS graduates – Janay Perry and Shonette Balton, MAPCS Class of 2006 – are now entering their second semester at Clark Atlanta University— with a little help from a mentor who has seen it all.
“When Janay and Shonette tell me about everything they are going through and how they don’t feel like anybody understands, I’m like, ‘Believe me. I understand,’” says Keys. “If everything I’ve been through allows me to help somebody else in a meaningful way, then it was all worth it. It’s the least little bit I can do to repay everything MAPCS has done for me.” |
