Student Testimonials

Good morning, my name is Giuliana Semiglia. I attend Memorial High School, and I am going into my junior year. The Texas Leadership program helped me in many ways this summer. I moved to the country two years ago, and I didn’t fully understand how everything about college worked, but in the program I learned many things that will help me by the time I apply to colleges, now I know what I have to do and what colleges expect from me. The program not only helped me on how to apply to colleges, but also how to be a better person, taught me financial literacy, how to be more confident, and how to be more prepared to become an adult. After this program I set many goals and higher expectations for myself, it helped me to remember that everything I set my mind to is possible if I work for it. The program also helped me to create friendships, and to meet people with very big goals, who inspired me to believe that everything is possible to achieve with hard work. I thank from the bottom of my heart everything I learned this summer, and all the amazing people who contributed to make it all possible. I will be back next year, and I will bring friends so they can also learn all these things that will be very useful in our lives!

This summer, I went to the National Youth Consortium, a week-long college camp help at Rice University. Each day went from 8 to 4, and we did various activities to help us get ready for college, like public speaking and writing essays about schools we might want to go to. One of the most inspiring parts was hearing the story of Datreese Thomas, a young business owner who followed her passion and started a successful doll company that helps young Black girls feel confident and proud of who they are. Her story showed me that success comes from hard work and believing in yourself. What I liked most about the camp was meeting different people and learning new things. I wish the camp could be longer so we would have more time to really practice the skilsl we learned.