{"id":59341,"date":"2012-04-27T09:34:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T13:34:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=59341"},"modified":"2023-11-05T20:02:12","modified_gmt":"2023-11-06T01:02:12","slug":"class-of-2012-melanie-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/04\/class-of-2012-melanie-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2012: Melanie Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the University counts down to Commencement, UConn Today is featuring some of this year\u2019s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. For additional profiles of students in the Class of 2012, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Melanie<\/a>
Melanie Rodriguez ’11 (ED), ’12 MA. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the first person in her immediate family to go to college, Melanie Rodriguez \u201911 (ED), ’12 MA grew up getting her ideas of what university life is like from books and movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t ask my parents what going to college was like,\u201d she says, although older cousins and teachers did also play a role in shaping her perceptions of life on a college campus.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez had wanted to be a teacher since kindergarten, and to achieve her ambition she needed a college degree. With the Neag School of Education\u2019s Integrated Bachelors\/Master\u2019s in elementary education ranking among America\u2019s top 25 teacher education programs, UConn was her No. 1 choice. But after growing up in Bridgeport, the prospect of living in Storrs was very different.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing from the city, Storrs was a culture shock,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez was fortunate to have support from UConn\u2019s Student Support Services (SSS) program, a pillar of the University\u2019s commitment to helping first-generation college students succeed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSSS helped me make a great transition from high school to college and prepare myself for the academic workload,\u201d Rodriguez says. \u201cI made connections with amazing mentors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those initial connections started what became a hallmark of Rodriguez\u2019s UConn career. \u201cI really just dove in, got to meet a lot of different people, and formed friendships,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

She has since gone on to win the Neag School\u2019s William Randolph Hearst Scholarship, Connecticut\u2019s Minority Teacher Scholarship, an American Association of University Women Scholarship, and an SSS grant.<\/p>\n

In addition to the student teaching that is a cornerstone of teacher education programs, UConn\u2019s program also requires its prospective educators to intern in a school system. This more administrative experience facilitates networking with principals, vice principals, secretaries, people in a school district\u2019s central office such as curriculum specialists, and even the superintendent. During her master\u2019s year in the Neag program, Rodriguez served her internship at Hartford\u2019s Clark Elementary and Middle School and seized the opportunity to make a permanent difference.<\/p>\n

While some interns wrote a report suggesting how to solve a particular school\u2019s problem, Rodriguez and another Neag intern actually closed a gap in the Clark School\u2019s academic offerings by resurrecting the school\u2019s library, which had fallen into disuse. Youngsters at the school will now once again have a school library, thanks to the UConn students\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez and her colleague entered a Facebook contest sponsored by the We Give Books organization. Like all the other contestants, the two posted a photo on the social network of a child being read to. The photo that received the most \u201clikes\u201d would win $500 to spend on books as the winner desired.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the contest!\u201d says Rodriguez. \u201cI\u2019m an RA at UConn and I sent it out to the RA listserve and to everyone in Neag \u2013 \u2018please \u201clike\u201d this photo.\u2019 We had over 2,000 \u2018likes!\u2019\u201d Along with winning the contest, the pair held seven book drives throughout Connecticut, and received a donation from Scholastic Books, reopening the library with a total of 8,000 books.<\/p>\n

Having expanded her comfort zone to forge personal and professional relationships and obtain her education, Rodriguez now hopes to give back to her community by obtaining a teaching job in Bridgeport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coming to Storrs from Bridgeport was a culture shock for Melanie Rodriguez ’11 (ED), ’12 MA, but she succeeded beyond her expectations and now hopes to return to teach in the city where she grew up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":58935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1855,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[43],"class_list":["post-59341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-neag","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-25 15:52:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59341"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":206549,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59341\/revisions\/206549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/58935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59341"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=59341"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=59341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}