Cal Poly engineering majors serving as mentors (standing on top back row), Diamond Bar high school student mentees, instructor Scott Chang, at far left, Pomona City Councilmember Rubio Gonzalez, at far right, and, seated in front Pomona Mayor Tim Sandoval, and seated immediately behind Sandoval is LAMP mentee and Diamond Bar student Melvin Houston
A new engineering mentoring program at Cal Poly University Pomona is hopefully heading for high schools throughout the Pomona Unified School District after a successful six-week summer pilot at Diamond Bar High School.
Melvin Houston, a GZBF LAMP Mentor Program student, was instrumental in helping get the entire program off the ground. Houston was inspired to explore the possibility of creating the engineering mentoring program partly as a result of his longtime mentoring relationship with Archon Clark Rucker. Houston’s passion was further catalyzed after Archon Rucker invited him to be his guest at Cal Poly Pomona’s (CPP) 3Q17 Distinguished Lecture Series where Archon Ramsey Jay, Jr. delivered the keynote address on “Leadership Development and Achievement” and “Empowering Dreamers to Become Achievers” challenging attendees to use his empowerment framework to effectively transition from dreaming to achieving. Subsequent to the lecture, Houston met the CPP Dean of Engineering, CPP faculty, and shared his dream of obtaining an engineering internship at CPP. As fate would have it, at the time of Houston’s inquiry, CPP did not provide internship opportunities for high school students. Houston pressed on and further explored the possibility and eventually was appointed as an ambassador between CPP’s School of Engineering and his high school (Diamond Bar) to assist with establishing an internship program. After much work and collaboration, a pilot STEAM internship program was launched over the summer at CPP for Diamond Bar High School seniors enrolled in the Brahma Tech core program. The success of the CPP Engineering Mentoring program made headlines; headlines; click here to read the La Nueva Voz press release.
