Celebrating Our Seniors: Oswald Garcia
Highlighting Members of the Class of 2024 as they Write their Next Chapter
Graduation…then what? For seniors in high school and college, graduation is the ultimate punctuation mark on a portion of their academic career and the natural closing of a chapter. But what comes afterwards? The next chapter our graduates will write will be about their new beginnings, whether that is in a professional career, in their postsecondary education journey or in their opportunities to make a continued commitment to Meliora, finding ways to make the world ever better. We want to take some time to celebrate our Kearns Center affiliated seniors on all their achievements and share what their education has meant to them and the ways in which the Kearns Center has impacted their lives. This series will highlight several seniors in our programs at the Kearns Center who are ready for their next chapter.
Introducing: Senior, Oswald Garcia
Program: Kearns Scholars Program
Major: Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
Next Chapter: Job at Arm in Chandler, Arizona
Senior Oswald Garcia is looking forward to graduation and what the next chapter holds when he leaves Rochester and moves to Chandler, Arizona this summer. “I accomplished what I came here for. I did my education in my degree that I wanted to pursue, and straight off the bat I got a job offer and I secured it!” Garcia is an electrical and computer engineering student at the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and landed an engineering job at Arm, a tech company which has offices all over the world.
Garcia is no stranger to Arm or the Arm offices in Chandler, Arizona. He took a hardware engineering internship at the company during the summer between his junior and senior year and already knows a bit of what to expect when he starts in July. “The one thing that I liked about interning at Arm was their work life balance. So, you would work three days in office and two days at home… that was an aspect that I really enjoyed. Just being that you are not working a set nine to five.” Garcia says the experience helped him feel more independent and confident about what life could look like after college. After the internship ended, Garcia applied for a full-time position at Arm and landed an interview which eventually got him the job. Garcia says getting an offer, while still in college, was such an emotional moment that he won’t soon forget. “Right after I got off the call, I quickly called my parents, and I said, ‘I got the job offer’ and they started crying and I started crying. It was an emotional rollercoaster. I definitely think it was a big relief and weight off my shoulders,” says Garcia.
Garcia says his parents, who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador, have always placed a lot of emphasis on getting an education. As the youngest of four siblings, Garcia will become the first in his family to earn a college degree, something he says he is extremely proud of. It hasn’t always been easy, but Garcia says his hard work is paying off and he is filled with mixed emotions about this next chapter. “I’m obviously excited to graduate. I’ve always wanted to graduate from college, that was one of my goals, and as well as a goal that I always told my parents that I was going to do. So, accomplishing it is a great feeling. However, it’s definitely a new chapter in my life and it’s going to be a big shift. I feel like I’m very prepared for that, but I just don’t know what’s in store.”
Garcia is also a member of the Kearns Center community and says his time at the University of Rochester and the center have been so impactful. Garcia is a Kearns Scholar and works at the Kearns Center as a program assistant. He was introduced to the Kearns Center early on in his first year and was interested in what it had to offer, so he enrolled in a 1 credit Kearns led course, CASC 145: Navigating the Academy, during the fall semester of his sophomore year. “The Kearns Center lives up to that introduction that I was given,” Garcia says. The eight-week course is unique and provides an opportunity for first-generation college students to build academic, leadership and social skills within a community of scholars. Completing the course allows students to become Kearns Scholars, a designation that students can carry throughout their college career. For Garcia becoming a Kearns Scholar meant feeling more connected with the center and visiting it more often. “A lot of students do just come here and sit in the lounge and talk…there is a sense of community here,” says Garcia. Melissa Raucci is the Manager of Academic Opportunity Programs for the College Division at the Kearns Center and knows just how important the Kearns Scholars program can be for first-generation college students, as they make that transition from high school to college. “Oswald exemplifies everything we want in a Scholar; watching him mature into a serious, thoughtful intellectual and leader has been nothing short of extraordinary. His dedication to the Kearns Scholars program and advancing the mission of the Center is evident across multiple aspects of his time here at the UR.”
When Garcia is not busy working at the Kearns Center or going to class and doing schoolwork, he is most likely DJing or cutting hair on campus. “I’ve always loved the feeling of a barbershop. Here I’m a barber, I cut hair. Through that it has kind of grown into a passion, an interest, a hobby of mine, and I don’t want to leave that behind.” Garcia says he plans to eventually open his own barbershop and lounge one day while also maintaining his aspirations to excel and move up in his career and potentially explore grad school.
Garcia says Rochester has been his home for the last four years and he is forever grateful for all the memories he was able to make along the way. “Four years here, meeting new people, different cultures, really having an impactful four years here, I think leaving that behind is sentimental and there is something that is sad about it, but overall I’m very happy and excited for this new chapter.” For those who will be graduating next year Garcia has this piece of advice: “Definitely spend time with your close friends or people who have impacted your college experience,” adding that creating and fostering relationships can be such an important part of the college experience and that he wished he would have made more time for friends in addition to spending so much time on his academics.
Read more about the next chapters for our graduating seniors in our 2024 “Celebrating our Seniors” series. What is your next chapter? Share it with us, using #URKearnsNextChapter.