By the end of her senior year, one City College student had already been incarcerated multiple times, was involved with local gangs and had little insight into her future.

Four years and countless hours of dedication later, Edith Rodriguez flew out to represent City College in Washington, D.C.

At the Aspen Institute ceremony, Second Lady Jill Biden announced that City College won the 2013 Aspen Institute Prize for Community College Excellence.

“It’s touching, I would never picture myself in our nation’s capital. I went back to the time when I was a disappointment to my family then thought of where I was in that moment and it was just the best feeling,” said Edith Rodriguez, former Extended Opportunities Programs and Services (EOPS) President.

Now, Rodriguez is preparing to transfer with an associate degree in liberal arts with an emphasis in math and science as well as a separate associate degree in physics under her belt.

All of this, and she didn’t even graduate from eighth grade.

Instead of being preoccupied with boys, candy and television, she stumbled onto the dangerous road paved by some family members before her.

“My cousins didn’t go to school and kind of became involved with street gangs and drugs. That’s what I was exposed to so just watching what my cousins did made me take that path too,” said Rodriguez.

“I remember in junior high I didn’t even graduate because I started getting into trouble,” she said. “I got into fights. I kind of lived like that during my high school experience. I was not a good student at all.”

Her parents had moved to America from Mexico, determined to provide a better life for their children. However, they had little control over Rodriguez and her brother as they began mimicking their extended family’s criminal activity.

“I didn’t know any other way to live. My cousins didn’t go to school. I lived in a bubble. I knew it wasn’t the right thing but it was the only thing I knew,” she said.

“At the same time my brother was getting incarcerated with me too. He had gotten into big trouble and he was looking at a couple years as a juvenile and I remember seeing how heavy that was on my family and I realized, ‘Oh my god, what am I doing?’”

It was that day she decided to make a change.

Consequently, Rodriguez returned to Santa Barbara High School, after spending some time at El Puente community school and Villa Esperanza probation school, to graduate with the rest of her class. In the last few weeks before graduation, a representative came to inform students of City College’s Running Start program.

Running Start is a six-week summer program in which students take two classes in the morning and are tutored in the afternoon. They go on field trips Fridays and are paid $100 a week to attend. The program is meant to inspire the educationally unprepared as well as low-income students to pursue a better future.

Rodriguez was hooked. She took down the presenter’s number and made sure to contact him immediately in regards to the program.

The number belonged to Alfonso Corral, EOPS student program advisor, who would recommend her for the Aspen Award trip years later.

“You could tell that she was a go-getter, she was calling and emailing me before I even got the information out. You could tell that she wanted to be a part of the program,” said Corral.

Just weeks after barely graduating from Santa Barbara High School in 2009, Rodriguez began attending City College regularly, and fell in love with what the school had to offer.

During her time here, she was President of EOPS and a member of Phi Theta Kappa. She is currently a part of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers. Her main focuses right now are her academics and an internship at UCSB where she assists in programing hardware.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her upset or mad. She always has a smile on her face. The thing about her is that she gives it all back. She went back to El Puente to tutor students, she comes here to EOPS as a peer advisor, and she was a peer advisor for Running Start,” said Corral.

“Every year she’s been here she’s organized a day for students to come to Running Start. That was all created by Edith,” he said. “We didn’t have anything as structured as that before she came along and said, ‘I want to do this.’”

Her actions have not gone unnoticed. When Superintendent-President Lori Gaskin called Rodriguez to announce she had been chosen for the Aspen Award trip, she was shocked.

“I realized I was the only student going. It gave me the chills. Knowing that the hard work that I’ve done has paid off,” said Rodriguez.

“It was an honor to be there to represent our school because I’m so thankful for the staff here. They helped me all the way and encouraged me. I feel like I have a little family. When I needed the support I found it, and that’s why I stayed.”