July/August 2008
Around the Quads
Student Spotlight: Luis Quero ’10 Balances School, Work and Family
By Nathalie Alonso ’08
Beginning college usually means moving away from home for the first time. But for Luis Quero ’10, the decision to attend the College actually brought him closer to home. Born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, Quero left to pursue his educational dreams at 14 when he decided to attend Westminster School, a small boarding high school in Connecticut.
Quero, whose family is from Puerto Rico, was able to attend Westminster thanks to Prep for Prep, a not-for-profit organization that identifies promising minority students, prepares them academically, and then places them in independent high schools that reserve places for Prep for Prep participants. The organization provides students with ongoing counseling and career services throughout high school and college.
For Brooklyn native Luis Quero '10, the opportunity to receive an Ivy League education while staying close to home made the College a perfect fit. PHOTO: JONATHAN BATISTA“It definitely opened my eyes to the real world,” says Quero of leaving home at such a young age. “It's given me an independence that I'm very grateful for.”
Despite having limited financial resources, Quero set his sights on higher education at a young age. “I had always known that I was going to attend college in some fashion. My mother instilled that in me when I was young and I strove to make it happen,” he says.
Not afraid to work for his goals, Quero knew he would need an income in order to pursue his dream of obtaining a college degree. Though he considered attending school outside of New York, he chose the College partly because of the employment opportunities living in New York City affords.
“Financially, it would have been a lot more difficult [to attend college elsewhere],” says Quero. “Columbia also gave me the opportunity to be close to home.”
Since summer 2006, Quero has held several positions with Time Inc., a Time Warner company, where he works more than 20 hours a week during the semester and full-time during the summer. He has been a communications intern, a recruitment operations intern and a production finance assistant. Quero also works a few hours a week as a tutor for Champion Learning Center, where he provides math and English training to underprivileged high school students in the outer boroughs.
Though Quero lives on campus, he has not relinquished his familial responsibilities, going home periodically for the weekend to help his 15-year old brother with homework and assisting his family financially.
As a result of his experiences working at Time, Quero plans to pursue a career in corporate finance. In the meantime, rather than take a traditional path toward his goal by studying economics, he is using his time in the College to explore other interests. "I would be myopic in my thought process if I didn't consider other coursework,” he suggests.
Quero is majoring in urban studies, an interdisciplinary subject, because he wants to “begin to understand how socioeconomic, racial and political factors influence the way in which we live and are raised. I grew up in an urban environment. My experience of leaving ... and going to prep school for four years and seeing how different my classmates' lifestyles were fascinated me,” he explains.
Quero, whose musical tastes are wide-ranging (an opera aficionado, he also started a salsa club in high school) was involved with Let’s Get Ready, a volunteer SAT preparation program near campus at the Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem. He also was a member of the Ballroom Dancing Team during his first year at the College, but could not continue because of time constraints.
“There are so many great clubs, so many great activities. There are just not enough hours in the day. I do feel [having to work] has taken something away from my experience here. If I had the choice to not work, I wouldn't,” says Quero, who nonetheless is considering finding the time to join the rugby team.
Quero, however, has not felt deprived in his experiences with the Core Curriculum. He says Roberta and William Campbell Professor of the Humanities Michael Rosenthal made Lit Hum one of the best experiences of his college career so far. "He found a way to make [the texts] relevant to our lives,” notes Quero.
Jay Orenduff, Quero’s adviser, has been impressed by Quero's demeanor even through the most stressful times. “Luis is the epitome of positivity,” he says. "He is always upbeat. He always lifts up the spirits of those who are around him.”
That positive attitude is allowing Quero to make the most of his experience in the College.
“I love the fact that there’s always something going on campus,” he says, “and the people that I get to meet. You can find someone from a corner of the world you've never heard of.”