CSUDH Student Earns Top CSU Award

(September 14, 2021) Berenice Rojas, an undergraduate at CSUDH, has earned the 2021 CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement. The award is the CSU’s highest recognition of student achievement, given each year to students across the system who demonstrate superior academic performance, personal accomplishments, community service, and financial need. Rojas is also the Trustees’ Award Edison International Scholar.

Rojas is no stranger to hard work. Its value was instilled in her at a young age by her Mexican immigrant parents, who toiled in the Yuma, Arizona sun as farmworkers to provide for Berenice and her two brothers.

When the family moved to the United States, Rojas was 12 years old and didn’t know English. Her schools didn’t provide resources for English language learners, so she taught herself English by watching television and reading children’s books. In high school, she started an after-school tutoring program to help other English language learners.

While attending Arizona Western College, where she got an associate degree in agriculture, she devoted herself to helping immigrants navigate the path to obtaining U.S. citizenship – even attending interviews and serving as an interpreter for prospective citizens.

Today, the Toro student is continuing to carve a path for herself by pursuing a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at CSUDH. She wants to use the knowledge she gains at the university to help mitigate the effects of climate change in the Arizona fields where her parents still work seasonally.

“Where I used to live in Arizona, there aren’t enough crops anymore, because of global warming” she says. “I want to help make a change, so that the production can start increasing again. I want to make it a better place for my parents and everybody else who’s working there.”

Rojas, who put her education on hold for several years so she could support her family while her twin brothers attended university, returned to complete her degree in 2020. For her, earning the Trustees’ Award was validation of her years of hard work.

“I was visiting my family when I received the news. I was in shock and overcome by a sensational emotion that I was unable to put in words. One of my twin brothers read the letter to my parents, then they got excited, too,” Rojas said.

“This scholarship is a great honor; it means continuing my education and progress as a whole for my family and me.”