When Fernando Flores-Flores, ‘27, arrived at Lehigh, he didn’t expect to find a strong, close-knit Hispanic community on campus.
After attending a predominantly white boarding school as a Hispanic student, Flores-Flores assumed Lehigh would offer a similar experience with limited opportunities to connect with others who shared his background.
However, during his freshman year, he discovered the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, a national organization founded in 1974 by Rodrigo Garcia in Los Angeles that expanded to Lehigh in 1992.
Today, the society has around 200 members at Lehigh and focuses on supporting the success of Hispanic students in STEM fields through professional guidance, workshops and hands-on projects.
“Having that sort of community that understands what I’m going through is something that has helped me, and hopefully I’m able to help other people in the next months or years,” Flores-Flores said.
Sofia Ruiz, ‘25, president of the society at Lehigh, said the organization provides both a close-knit community and a variety of professional resources.
Ruiz said the organization welcomes everyone, regardless of ethnicity or academic discipline. Some members are finance majors and business students, for example, and she said she believes they’ve benefited from the opportunities the organization offers.
The organization’s workshops are structured to guide students through the job searching process and internship applications while connecting them with potential employers, she said.
The society also embraces Hispanic culture by celebrating holidays such as Día de los Muertos, serving traditional foods at meetings and playing cultural games like Lotería — a Mexican board game similar to bingo.
This semester, Ruiz said, the organization plans to collaborate with the Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers, and the National Society of Black Engineers for an event titled “Diversity in STEM.” She hopes the event will connect students from different backgrounds with professors and peers while providing a platform to showcase their research.
“Our goal is to bring awareness to what students that are from diverse backgrounds and minorities are doing on campus,” Ruiz said.
Fernando Flores, ‘27, an accounting and finance major who is also a member of the organization, said he took advantage of the society’s resources by attending its national convention in Anaheim, California last semester.
The event featured a career fair, workshops and opportunities for students to network with companies. He said the event helped him connect with companies like Goldman Sachs for accounting and finance opportunities.
Ruiz also attended the national convention in Anaheim. She said professionals and recruiters she met there have been helpful to her career development and are assisting her with her job search.
Flores said being a business student has often made him feel isolated at Lehigh, as there aren’t many other Hispanic students in his classes.
However, through the society, Flores said he connected with another business student, Vanessa Munoz-Hernandez, ‘27, who has supported him in navigating his classes. He said the two now study together as they take many of the same core classes.
Flores also said the organization has been particularly beneficial for first-generation students, like himself, who tend to face challenges like translating important documents for their parents and navigating processes such as FAFSA, CSS and college applications.
“My mom was just lost,” Flores said. “I don’t know how 18-year-olds are supposed to know about these different types of incomes that parents receive. It was just very confusing and something that creates a lot of stress and anxiety coming from someone who just wants to better their education.”
Flores said seniors in the organization have offered guidance and support to underclassmen during challenging moments by sharing knowledge from their own experiences.
For example, after failing a class last year, Flores questioned whether he could continue his education at Lehigh. However, he said the seniors helped him realize that it’s okay to struggle.
“They definitely served as parental figures a lot of the time, especially when a lot of the people are struggling and need some assistance, even with academic planning,” Flores said.
For students like Flores-Flores, the organization has become a space that offers more than just academic and cultural experiences.
“I just started going to all the events and really connected with people and seeing it more than just an engineering club or just a cultural club,” Flores-Flores said. “Soon it became more than that. (The society) became a place where I could meet people and just grow up better as a student and as a person.”
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