Defying expectations

Fourth-year UC Irvine student Yessica Ornelas believes that directly engaging with a community is the best method for cultivating change.

Growing up in Soledad, an agricultural city in Central California, she was surrounded by talk of higher education being an unattainable goal. However, her parents encouraged Ornelas to chart her own course, instilling the importance of erudition.

For the aspiring first-generation college student, this meant navigating an unfamiliar system on her own. Determined to break her town's norm, she sought out resources available to her, taking dual-enrollment college courses while in high school and joining the Soledad Police Department's Youth Explorers Program to discover potential career paths.

Drawn to policy-related studies, Ornelas developed an interest in business watching her grandmother and mother run floral businesses, but her inherent desire to aid others lay in her politically active nature.

"I wanted to create change, and the only way I could create change in the community was to be the community," she says. "Be with them, understand their needs. Sit down with someone and listen to what's happening."

This brought Ornelas to UC Irvine's business administration program, which she later combined with criminology, law and society to merge her interests in both policy and research. And she's found ways to make a positive impact, starting within the Anteater population.

In 2022, as a precursor to the work she hopes to do, Ornelas spoke to fellows at UC Irvine's Dream Center about how to navigate debt, build credit and become financially literate.

She also maintains ties to her hometown of Soledad, having interned with the police department's administration sector. This past summer, Ornelas was a fellow with her local City Hall, and she continues to work remotely, helping the community engagement department to bridge the gap between government and people, fostering safe environments for all.

Currently, Ornelas holds a fellowship with UC Irvine's Office of Enrollment Management, where she has collaborated on various projects throughout her undergraduate career, including financial literacy workshops and AI integration.

In addition, she's the 2023-24 recipient of the Denise Patrick Undergraduate Student Award, which supports first-generation students in their academic endeavors. Ornelas says that receiving the award has alleviated the stress of extra expenses and also reminds her that she's not alone in her educational journey.

In her fourth year at UC Irvine, she will carry out independent research through the School of Social Ecology Honors Program to understand how immigration policies shape individuals, specifically within the Latino population.

Looking to the future, Ornelas plans to attend graduate school and study public policy, with the intention of working for city governments - and eventually the state of California - to build more equitable communities. And she intends to return to higher education at some point to aid students in their journeys as others have influenced and guided her.

"Mentorship is such an important role in a child's life. Growing up, some people don't have the same support I had. I want to be the support they need at that time in whatever capacity that may look like," Ornelas says. "Hearing the youth and what they want to achieve and seeing myself in them, I want to tell them it's possible. Don't let anyone tell you it's not, because you make your own path."