Staff Biography

Melecia Navarro's
Personal Statement Tips

VIDA Program Coordinator

Message from Melecia Thank you De Anza for welcoming me to the team! As a former student activist on campus, it is so great to be back! Focus Internship Program Project Advising Grant Administration Budgeting

Biography

Specializing in designing and coordinating employment training programs for young adults since 2009, Melecia Navarro is an experienced program coordinator, committed to mentoring youth and young adults as they navigate their academic and career goals. She helped build City of San Jose’s environmental employment training program, Green Cadre, from the ground up and later used her talent in structuring successful program designs to build The Unity Council’s first youth employment training program, Oakland Youth Engaged (OYE), engaging the surrounding Fruitvale youth, parents, merchants and community members. Both programs are thriving to this day! In addition to holding a BA in Ethnic Studies and Film Studies from UC Berkeley, Ms. Navarro started her journey at De Anza College, very active in clubs, like Students for Justice, and the DASB student senate (DASB President, 2002-2003). She is excited to return to campus, now as a dedicated staff member!

About the Project

VIDA is a hub, a place to build community, work in solidarity, and dream of transformation! Students gather in the office to organize, work on projects, get plugged into campus activities, and hang out!

For students to build skills and knowledge outside the classroom, students engage in various social justice campaigns on and off campus. As volunteers, one might sign up and have different levels of commitment, eventually taking on leadership roles. However, as a paid Intern, students are identified/placed in specific roles and are accountable for major responsibilities on the campaigns. The ultimate goal is to build student power and to be agents of change in this world.

Students can also earn a Leadership and Social Change Certificate by taking courses at De Anza College.

Additional Roles

DALE Project Advisor, MYE Project Advisor

PERSONAL STATEMENT TIPS

By Melecia Navarro

It's like getting hired for a job

A resume is like a skeleton that shows a quick summary of who you are. Hiring managers quickly scan your resume to see if you meet the job. They use your cover letter to find out more. A cover letter should add the meat to the skeleton, illustrating the resume by adding a few qualities about yourself and examples. But it does not ignore the resume. Instead it highlights what is on the resume, filling in the gaps or pointing out patterns such as:
"As you can see, I have worked in youth services for 10 years, and I have grown in my positions from tutor to case manager to program coordinator, supervising a team. I understand every role on the team, which has prepared me to take on this position of manager at your agency because I am informed on what every person on the team will need to succeed."
A personal statement should not ignore what is on your application either. You do not know if the reader looks at your application or only your personal statement. So if you got good grades, you need to drop that in somewhere, even if it is not your main point. Even if it is fleeting. This works when highlighting good things or for answering for negative things like bad grades for a quarter.
Analyze the question/prompt
What do they want to know that is not being stated?
Will you succeed? Will you make a name for that school in that field of study?
Are you dancing around that or are you giving specific proof?
Are you getting good grades? Do you say that in your essay?
Have you done major projects in class that have shown your love for the subject or what you want to continue to do?
Know your voice and vision
People will give you feedback but make sure it is your voice and viewpoint that is prominent
The style is up to you, you can use prose to illustrate points.
Have someone review spelling and grammar but don't let them comment too much on what you want to say
Of course, I will encourage you guys to anchor prose with the "follow-up/bringing it back home part," which is to say, what do your words have to do with the college/education you want to pursue at the next institution
What is your theory/philosophy on education? How can you sprinkle that throughout?
Example: "I am passionate about education. Who wouldn't be? Not many people would be against education as it is simply the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction. But the access of education has been a contentious space. How do we improve it so that equity is achieved for groups who have low enrollment and retention rates, such as people of color. As a person of color myself, I blah blah blah…. Fill in the blank. And that’s why I want to attend the University of California"
What is your theory/philosophy on your major? How can you sprinkle that throughout?
Example on theory on intended major: "At the heart of history lies storytelling. Before I knew what history really was, my dad would paint pictures of the past on the walls of my mind. Whether it be his stories of facing the horrors and dark humor of war as a reluctant draftee in Vietnam or growing up poor in San Diego in the 1950's, his words taught me that the past was living and consequential. When I learned the wider context of these events, it was the stories that gave them color and humanity. It was no surprise that I grew up with a special appreciation for history. While many of my classmates throughout the years would disregard history as a subject that had little practical value, I felt that there were few subjects that had more import. For myself, history has never been about the past, or at least not just about the past. It is about telling stories of what has come before in order to illuminate the present and to inform the future. In many ways, teaching is a type of storytelling as well, and this twin love of history and learning has driven my desire to be a teacher of history." -Ian Martin
Anchoring throughout/Personal statement
What are three qualities about yourself that you want to shine through?
You have to illustrate those through stories and examples to make your essay interesting to read and not just a list, but don't forget to point those out
My model for answering interview questions
Label
Define
Example
Follow-up
This is a generic example but follows the format, in the real world you would make it less dry:
"I am a great leader. A leader is someone who listens and observes in order to make an informed decision on the direction the group needs to go, and the leader has a role in directing the crowd in that direction. At my last job, I listened to my co-workers concerns and learned that the team needed clear roles and responsibilities to take ownership of major areas in the project. I met with the supervisor and proposed some roles that the team could take on. In the end, we were more efficient and able to meet our goals faster while building up great team camaraderie. And I will bring that to this next job. I know that in this role there are multiple projects that start and stop. I know I can bring these leadership roles to this position."
In the end!!!
How to apply that model to your personal statement:
If you only list off qualities you are not going far enough. If you give examples and stories but don't explicitly say what that example means by labeling it with a quality, you did not go far enough. If you don’t get to the so what of it all, which is that you are a prepared student and that you love education and that you will bring all this skills, knowledge and preparation to succeed at your new school, you did not go far enough.
2nd Email to students
Tips on Writers block: Personal Statement Edition!
If you got my last personal statement tips you will see, Ian Martin (my boyfriend/baby daddy) had the line: "At the heart of history is storytelling." Then he told a paragraph that weaved his philosophy on history with his dad telling him stories and then by the end of that paragraph explicitly stated "And that's what makes me passionate to be a history teacher." I hope I get my personal statement done for grad school (Social Welfare) and a line swirling in my head is, "I never wanted to be a teacher, but I ended up teaching. " And then my idea was to go into how I am surrounded by teachers in my family but for me working with youth has teaching elements in it, which I have done for over 10 years. But as I wrote a different theme kind of took over. And then I explored it.  
If you have a philosophy or viewpoint, run with it!
Philosophy or thoughts on your major/education
How your family/life experiences relate to that
Explicitly: what you want to do with this major or say, "And this is why I want to major in:___" If you know what you want to be when you grow up, you can throw that in too.
What have your accomplished that proves you are prepared
How I wrote my original statement is I wrote out all the important things to me, like growing up poor, my mom instilling education in us, my sister creating a fake library at our house to uphold this love of education for her sisters (which set us on a great path). Then I wrote wrote wrote and then looked back on the list to check if I had incorporated it in or not. I think I started off with a story on being in the senate and representing 25k students and how the budget cuts were affecting access to education.
I think the key is to not write our stories linear. Highlight this profound or life changing moment and then go back into time and fill in how you got there, then tell where you are going… The power of three… Past present future.
WRITE WRITE WRITE so that you have raw material to interact with!!! Write and then come show me or someone in your life and from there you can get an idea of where to go with it! I used to hate showing people my writing until it was really polished but if you want you can come in to get a second pair of eyes on it!
So my main advice is don't worry about the style of the writing or how it is said yet… worry more about getting it out on paper even if it is just in portions. Then when you let it sit there and come back to it you can start to feel out what needs to be taken out or added or clarified.