Determined to Succeed

Diana, who will graduate from Franklin and Marshall College this spring with a degree in Public Health and Studio Art, was recently in Los Angeles to speak at an event about how DTS changed her life.  Here are some highlights.  “Before joining Determined to Succeed, I was just a student trying to fulfill my immigrant parents’ dream and pursue an…
Read More

The six individuals in the photo above are or will be the first in their families to graduate from college.  Regardless of their stage in the college-going process, they each play a crucial role in Determined to Succeed’s model of college success.  Active mentoring and leading by example are hallmarks of the DTS program, and both are implemented by staff…
Read More

One morning last year, DTS student Andrea* said she needed to talk. Her science teacher had humiliated her in class, calling her “four-eyes” when she asked for a moment to put her glasses on in order to read a textbook passage out loud.  He followed with, “You look so ugly in your glasses, and just so you know, they don’t…
Read More

I first began working with Cristina* almost four years ago. She had been struggling in math for years. Even when her grades began to improve, she couldn’t help but feel intimidated whenever she worked on a new problem. All those years struggling left her convinced that she could never truly do well in math. This year, Cristina’s doing better than…
Read More

Sometimes the kids are going through something big in their lives, and I am so happy to be there for them through those hard times. But it’s also the small daily challenges that I know will have dramatic, long-term effects. A few weeks ago, I had a student looking at the work she needed to get done over the Thanksgiving…
Read More