Hear directly from Point Scholars and Alumni.
On November 5, 2019, state and local elections were held in communities across the United States, including in 63 of our 100 largest cities. That means that millions of other Americans got up, got in line, got their sticker, and got on with their day, just like I did — a ritual as strange as […]
Rosie from Virginia asked: “What social activities can I host in my community to combat homophobia?” HSBC Point Scholar Lucas Dickerson responded: To battle homophobia, it’s best to start small and with love. In my case, having an area full of homophobia has a dire lack of community for those who may feel […]
Throughout my life, I have always tried to follow my curiosity. I was a Freshman in high school the first time I ventured into the field of scientific research. Accompanying a family friend for the day in his laboratory, I was introduced to his work studying the effects of fresh water algae blooms in Arizona. […]
In January 2004 my grandparents took me to Havana, Cuba to meet my family there for the first time. A month later, the Bush Administration revoked family visitation rights, leading to an eight-year separation from the aunts, uncles, and cousins I had only known in stories and pictures until that visit. At age 13, I […]
Teaching: Avoiding Bias. Your Classroom: Optional Equity Training. Diversity Matters. And those are training titles to be truly grateful for — it is often the best it gets at this time of year. It’s the beginning of the semester at colleges and universities across the country, which also means a whole new class of teaching […]
Never having been to Los Angeles before, I was excited to see the city and visit the USC campus for the Point Foundation Community College Transfer Symposium. Because of a last-minute itinerary change, I was dropped off only a few hours before our tour, so I unpacked, relaxed, and took in the unprecedentedly best view […]
Six years ago, four friends and I sat at a tall wooden table near the entrance of Darwin’s Pub and waited to see if anyone else would show up. We had just come from the keynote presentation after a full day of conference talks at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology’s annual conference. That […]
The University of Southern California, my very-soon-to-be alma matter, is surrounded by four walls. That line could be taken as a cute expression to represent the usual college-student campus isolation, but I am being quite literal when I say the university park campus is surrounded by four, heavily-guarded fences. Though they have been here for […]
On the evening of October 13, 2018, I gave a speech in the International Ballroom of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. The room was packed with nearly hundreds of LGBTQ professionals, entertainers, writers, and dignitaries whose eyes and ears were transfixed on me. With clammy hands gripping the well-lit podium, I looked into […]
International Transgender Day of Visibility is important for so many reasons. Imagine living in a world where 90% of the population doesn’t really believe you are real, that you are characters horrifically portrayed in films, or caricatures paraded on television screens across the globe like circus freaks for the amusement of an insensitive and oftentimes […]