HGSE Admissions Blog

In this reflection, Valeria Gaviño Peña shares her journey from self-doubt and staying close to home to embracing possibility and purpose through her time at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Reflecting on her experiences as a first-generation college student, community college transfer student, and former college adviser, she explores how HGSE challenged her to dream beyond what once felt possible. Valeria encourages prospective students to “dream the impossible,” embrace community, and fully believe in their belonging and potential.

Valeria gaviño peña (she/her)

I chose HGSE because I wanted to challenge myself not only academically, but also personally. I wanted to know what it felt like to live somewhere new, somewhere across the country from everything familiar, to finally have the experience I had always missed.

I was a commuter student all through undergrad. Three years at Chabot Community College in Hayward, then two more at UC Berkeley to finish my bachelor’s. I never lived on campus. As the youngest of three and the only girl in my Mexican immigrant family, I felt a quiet pull to stay close to home, and I honored that pull for years without ever questioning it. Being family-oriented isn’t something I apologize for; it’s woven into who I am. But it also meant that for a long time, I kept my ambitions small and local, not because the dreams weren’t there, but because I didn’t yet believe they were meant for someone like me.

So when it came time to apply to graduate school, my plan was the same as it had always been: stay local, commute, play it safe. I applied to academic counseling programs at San Francisco State and San Jose State, and that was supposed to be the end of the story.

But someone saw something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself. I was encouraged to apply to HGSE’s fly-in program, Find Yourself Here, and I was denied. That rejection stung, and it made me hesitant to apply to HGSE at all. What saved me were two friends who were also applying and refused to let me give up. Their belief in me became the push I didn’t know I needed. I had never once envisioned myself applying to Harvard. When I opened that acceptance letter on March 7th, 2025, something shifted deep inside me. I realized I had not been dreaming big enough. I had not been believing in myself the way I deserved to. That moment quietly rewrote something in me.

Deciding to come wasn’t easy. Around that same time, my family was going through one of the most painful transitions of our lives. Due to the political climate, my parents made the heartbreaking decision to self-deport. In the middle of that grief, I had to decide whether to move across the country. I was overwhelmed and emotionally torn in ways that are hard to put into words. But I kept coming back to one thought: I owe it to my parents to choose the dream they never got to have. They sacrificed everything so that I could have options they never did. This was one of those options, a once-in-a-lifetime one that lived far beyond my own wildest imagination, let alone theirs. I had to be, as I kept reminding myself, a little selfish. I had to choose myself.

Before graduate school, I worked as a college adviser for the Destination College Advising Corps (DCAC) through UC Berkeley, a program designed to expand college access for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented students. What made it especially meaningful was that I had been a student in that very same program in high school. Coming back as an adviser was a full-circle moment I still think about with so much gratitude. I was placed at a high school just down the street from my old community college, walking those same streets that had shaped me during some of my most formative years. I supported over 150 students in my cohort and provided services to a school of more than 2,000, helping with everything from college applications and campus tours to scholarship workshops and Decision Day celebrations, one of my favorite events, where we honor seniors with food, joy, and the recognition of exactly where they’re headed next.

That work taught me something important: I wanted to create change on a larger scale. Student-facing work lit me up, but I kept thinking about the systems behind it, the policies and structures that either open doors or keep them shut. That realization is a big part of what brought me to HGSE.

Community college is my why. It gave me everything: support, the resources, and the kind of cariño (care) that you feel in your bones when someone truly believes in you. I didn’t fully understand until coming to HGSE just how low transfer and completion rates are for community college students. That knowledge doesn’t discourage me; it motivates me deeply. Because I know from my own life how transformative one person, one program, one moment of genuine care can be. I want to multiply that. I want to go back and give to others what was once given to me, and then some, inspiring others to lead with cariño the way it was modeled for me.

We are graduating at a critical moment. Education is being devalued and made increasingly inaccessible. More students will turn to community colleges out of financial necessity, and I am determined to be ready for them to help them not just get in but truly thrive. My parents always told me to find work that makes you want to get out of bed in the morning. Even in this political climate, even when hope feels harder to hold on to, I find that excitement every single time I think about helping a student get to and through higher education. For me, that work is also a form of resistance. One thing this administration cannot take from us is our education.

To prospective and incoming students: be delusional. Dream the impossible. I almost didn’t apply to HGSE, and then I almost didn’t come. I am so glad I did both.

This is a one-year program, and I’ll be honest, halfway through, I wished it were two. So use it every single day. Be the most curious, most social, most present version of yourself. Meet with faculty. Build real connections with your cohort. Don’t let imposter syndrome quiet you; it tried to quiet me more times than I can count. You are here because you belong here, and the world needs what only you can bring to it.

You are what you make of this program. Come with intention. Come with everything you want to become.