Letter from VESTED participants.....

Excerpt from email…

Good evening Mrs. Coleman,

This is Kayla Jones …… I am pleased to tell you that I got accepted to Villanova for chemical engineering! ...

Thank you again, if it wasn't for this program I wouldn't be where I am today. Please give my thanks to the mentors and Sean. They have made my stay there a wonderful and fulfilling experience.  It will be hard saying good bye to all my friends but hopefully I will be able to become a mentor. It would be so nice to see my VESTED buddies for a few more years. The one thing I will miss from this program is the feeling of belonging. Being there helped me get the confidence I need to achieve my dreams. From the informative presentations to the fun activities, every day I was able to learn something new.

As I had stated above, thank you. This email can't correctly express my gratitude. I had told about my experience to my guidance counselor and next year you will see more applications from the Deptford area. My mother has talked with friends whose children want to pursue engineering and told them about the program. With all the publicity I hoping next year the group will be bigger. If having a bigger applicant pool is a problem I give my condolences in advance, I just had to tell everyone about VESTED.

Yours truly,

Kayla Jones

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Dr. Jones:

My name is Jasmine Richardson, and I am a participant in VESTED.  I recently saw you at the Villanova Engineering open house.  At that time you told me to email you...

Dr Jones I am now a senior and am interested in majoring in chemical engineering.  When I first entered VESTED I knew that I wanted to do something with chemistry, but wasn't too sure of a direction.  That was the summer between 8th and 9th grades.  Now a few years later, I have more direction.  It was VESTED that opened my eyes to the many opportunities, and I also had no idea how much I was learning in the program.  I knew that I was having fun on those Saturday mornings and that I was learning, but I just didn't know how much I learned. Being a part of VESTED helped me to get selected to attend the United States Naval Academy Summer STEM program for one week a few summers ago.  Between VESTED and the USNA Summer STEM program, I have worked as an Engineer Aid for the Naval Surface Warfare Center the last two summers. Imagine every summer after 8th grade I have been connected to engineering in some way.  Dr Jones I want to be an engineer, a chemical engineer!

I want to just thank you and Villanova for having the VESTED Academy. It is an experience and opportunity that I will never forget.  This program allowed me to sample different types of engineering. It also gave me a good foundation for my summer position.  I hope that I can be a part of VESTED my senior year, and I hope that one day students like me will be able to attend the summer program as well as the spring program.  When people asked what do engineers do, I would have given them a short answer. Now I am able to have an intelligent conversation about what engineers do, and can talk about the different types of engineers. I can even talk about why I am more interested in one type for a career over another.  In 2012, I find it funny that many people want to discourage me from being an engineer. Even at my school, they were or appeared very supportive to the students. Once they heard me say that I was interested in becoming an engineer I had lots of comments as to why I should not think about engineering. Why I should consider other fields or majors in college. Even asked me if I really worked, like a real job when I was an Engineer Aid. I found out the this must be a closed field, and VESTED is helping to open it up to under represented populations, so THANKS!

Jasmine