45 graduates seize the day
Four summers ago, Juan De Jesus and Drudys Nicolas were typical college freshmen: ambitious, charming, and slightly overwhelmed by the challenge confronting them.
We had met for lunch in a downtown restaurant high above the city to talk about a Boston College tutoring program aimed at minority students. Even though they both lived in Boston, as they looked out the window at the Charles River and the State House beneath us -- their mouths agape -- it was as if they were seeing the city for the first time.
De Jesus grew up in Dorchester and had graduated from Boston College High School. Nicolas, who arrived in the United States from Venezuela at the age of 9, had graduated from Boston Latin School, though not without a struggle. Neither had set the world on fire on the college admissions exams; they were admitted because someone recognized their potential.
They were among 49 entering freshmen in a program designed to help "borderline" minority students adjust to college. As of Monday's commencement, 45 of those students are now BC graduates.
Those once-nervous kids are now success stories. De Jesus is headed for Wall Street, to a three-year program at JP Morgan. Nicolas, a nursing student, has offers from several hospitals.
"Someone gave me a second chance, and that's why I'm here," Nicolas said last week.
While their futures are bright, the future of the program they credit for their success, Options Through Education, is considerably more murky. Under pressure from interest groups that contend the program is illegal, nervous BC administrators are considering making substantial changes to it.
Many universities are in the midst of overhauling affirmative action programs in the wake of recent court rulings. Already OTE has been opened to students of all races -- read white students -- who have overcome significant economic or educational disadvantages, according to BC spokesman Jack Dunn.
A few days before they graduated, I sat with Nicolas and De Jesus again, this time to talk about what their college experience had meant to them.
"No one expected me to go to Boston College and do as well as I did, in the classroom and outside the classroom," De Jesus said. "Our past four years have been incredible."
He is the first member of his extended family to attend college. Now, his two younger siblings hope to follow him to higher education, possibly to Boston College. They figure they can do anything he can do.
"I look at my younger brother and sister and realize what OTE has done," he said. "It's changed not just my life, but the life of my family."
De Jesus and Nicolas appreciate what college has done for them, but believe they have contributed much to the school as well, simply by bringing a different perspective.
Nicolas, in her nursing program, has drawn constantly on her immigrant experience to relate to patients facing language barriers.
"I came [to the United States] with no knowledge of English," she said. "I know what it's like to be in a group of people and not know what they're talking about. My grandmother doesn't speak a lick of English."
De Jesus says he looks forward to Wall Street -- though he hopes to get an MBA eventually or to attend law school or both.
"I love it because it's a challenge," he said of entering the financial industry. "It's so much more exciting to me because no one expects me to be there."
His friend Nicolas, for her part, is weighing whether to accept a job offer here or to follow a close friend to the Atlanta area. Like many recent graduates, she wants to take a trip first before she really thinks about life after college.
"If I like Georgia, I'll come back here and pack up my stuff," she said. "But I don't really want to leave."
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 