Features: Center of Success
KEARNS SCHOLAR: While working with faculty on research projects as a Kearns and McNair Scholar, Hannah realized that he wanted to become a psychology researcher.UPWARD BOUND: Participating in the Kearns Center’s Upward Bound programs at Rochester’s Wilson High School convinced Haywood that she could succeed in college. She earned her degree from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. (Photo: Adam Fenster)Before participating in the Kearns Center’s Upward Bound Math/Science Program, Jazmyn Haywood was extremely shy and unable to express herself freely.
“The staff found a way to get me out of my shell,” she says. “I was also surrounded by students with the same goals and aspirations, which encouraged me to develop the social skills I needed to become a more confident person.”
Haywood saw a flyer for Upward Bound as a junior at Rochester’s Joseph C. Wilson Magnet High School.
“I knew I wanted to go to college but probably didn’t have all the necessary tools,” she says. “It seemed like a great opportunity.”
Upward Bound advisors helped her mom and grandparents locate scholarships, understand the financial aid process, and fill out application forms to colleges and universities that Haywood thought were “probably out of my reach.” For her personal statement, they helped her feel comfortable sharing her desire to make her grandfather proud. They routinely checked in on her once she got into Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y., and they wrote a recommendation letter that helped her study abroad in England during her junior year. She earned a bachelor’s degree in digital arts and sciences from Clarkson in 2013.
As an Upward Bound program assistant for two summers while in college, Haywood helped high school seniors develop their own personal statements and shared her personal experiences at Clarkson University. She hoped to boost self-confidence in students the same way that Upward Bound advisors had done for her.
These days, Haywood works as a digital analyst for an internet marketing company in Buffalo. Her goal is to continue developing her social skills and land a management position one day.
“I am very thankful to have been a part of Upward Bound,” she says. The people there “are like my second family. It’s a lifelong connection.”
