GREENFIELD — Greenfield native Jennifer Trujillo still remembers a back-to-school night from her elementary school days. Her parents arrived quite late, still in their work clothes, and stepped into her classroom, the cool air conditioning washing over their skin.
This is why you need to stay in school, her parents told her. So, you can get a job in a place that has air conditioning.
It was a simple comment that didn’t fully resonate with Trujillo until she spent a summer working alongside her mom transplanting lettuce in the agricultural fields of Monterey County. After days of being on her knees following behind a tractor, covered head to toe to protect herself from the punishing sun and pesticides, her future became clear.
“I remember how exhausting that was and realizing I didn’t ever want to do that again,” she said. “So, one of my options was to keep going to school, learn, and find a career.”
This spring, Trujillo is one of only 11 students named recipients of the Lt. Robert Merton Rawlins Merit Award at California State University, Chico, a recognition, she said, that affirms her hard work and dedication have been noticed.
“Being a first-generation student and a child of immigrants, I find myself constantly thinking that I’m not doing enough,” she said. “This scholarship is showing me that I should be proud of my accomplishments. I feel proud of the work I’ve done so far, and I’m excited to do a lot more in the future.”
Trujillo said the Rawlins Award will help her continue working toward her long-term goals of becoming a professor. It will ease some of the financial burden, allowing her to seek more learning and research opportunities. Without scholarships, grants, and fellowships, she would not be pursuing a graduate degree today, she said.
This May, Trujillo (Psychology, ’24) is set to complete her master’s degree in psychological science.
“It is surreal to me,” she said. “I never had anyone to look up to who was in higher education. I was the first in my family to graduate high school, the first to earn a bachelor’s, and now I’m about to be the first in my family to have a master’s degree.”
She’s not stopping there. Trujillo is a Sally Casanova Scholar, a competitive predoctoral program that provides individualized guidance from a California State University faculty mentor and opportunities to collaborate with professors at doctoral-granting institutions across the country. She plans to pursue a doctorate at University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; or University of California, Los Angeles, focusing on neuroscience and cognition.
Trujillo found her calling in psychology at Chico State after switching her major from nursing. Programs like Adelante and the Educational Opportunity Program helped her navigate cultural and financial stress, while connecting her with peer mentors who were graduate students in the marriage and family therapy and psychological sciences programs. As a mentee, she gained confidence and received the encouragement to continue pushing forward. Those relationships and experiences sparked her interest in research and eventually in graduate school.
“My first goal was to become a therapist, but I gradually became more passionate about research and becoming a professor,” Trujillo said.
As she wraps up her last semester at Chico State, Trujillo continues to make the most of her time on campus and taking advantage of all the preparation available through her graduate program. She is working as a teaching assistant for Professor Bo Yeong Won and is mentoring undergraduate students while continuing her research on cognition.
Won, who has worked closely with Trujillo for the past three years as her instructor, mentor and advisor, describes her as one of the most promising students and researchers she has encountered. Beyond her academic excellence, Trujillo is deeply committed to mentorship and community engagement. As a peer coach at the WellCat Counseling Center, she contributed to curriculum development aimed at helping students with ADHD strengthen their study strategies. In her previous role as a Graduate Equity and Graduate Education Access & Opportunity fellow, she further demonstrated her dedication to fostering inclusivity in academia.
Trujillo has also embraced interdisciplinary learning by minoring in Spanish and developing bilingual proficiency, enhancing her ability to connect with and serve diverse communities, Won added.
One day, Trujillo hopes to stand at the front of her own classroom and captivate and engage her students just as her Chico State professors did for her. And because there are so few people in higher education with backgrounds like hers, she said she wants to be the professor who helps other students see themselves in higher education—and believe they belong there.
“As a bilingual, first-generation Latina student from a migrant farmworker family, I’ve experienced firsthand the importance of cultural and linguistic competence in academia and community,” she said. “I never imagined higher education would be within my reach. Yet, thanks to the support of Chico State and its Psychology Department, I’ve had the opportunity to pursue my dreams. I want to be able to share my story with students, so that they’re inspired to pursue their own goals.”
Article courtesy of Chico State Today, a publication of California State University, Chico.
