Rosaelena Barkas

Student

“My coworker, Luz Avila, is the best! She arranges my working hours around my kids.”

One paycheck away from the street. That’s how far too many Americans live. And when life dealt Rosaelena and her two young children the penultimate calamity, her horizon was one of concrete and despair. “When my husband died, it was a real blow,” she recalls in a pensive voice. “I ended up losing my home, became homeless, and we all stayed in a shelter. But I’m not a quitter!” she says with fierce pride. “My husband had always stopped me from going to college. So when he passed away, the first thing I did was to enroll at SMC. I was coming here even when we were in the shelter. And now I’m outta there, and I’ve got my own place again.”

You simply cannot keep a good woman down. And through counseling, some great teachers, and her own sheer grit, Rosaelena is rising up to her full potential. “My self-esteem is so much better now. When I first came to SMC, I was very timid, and it was very hard for me to open up. But I got such great support from my teachers and counselors that I feel I’m just beginning to know a whole new ‘me.’ And I never stop bragging about the place,” she says with a genuine laugh.

Having hungered for education, knowing its value, and having learned—first-hand—how it can turn lives around, Rosaelena is awakening her abilities to help others like herself. “I’m majoring in Psychology and, if I go with that, I’d like to become a college counselor,” says the young single mom who works as a receptionist at SMC’s Academy of Entertainment & Technology. “I would definitely recommend this college to other single mothers, because this place knows what sorts of problems we have to deal with. An education is a difficult commodity. But with the support you get here at SMC, there’s nothing you cannot reach.”

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