Victor Mejia

Growing up in South LA and Boyle Heights, Victor Mejia participated in TELACU Education Foundation Programs since middle school. “I began in the Talent Search Program,” he recalls, “and continued until I graduated from high school. TELACU instilled in me the knowledge that, regardless of socio-economic status or the neighborhoods that I lived in, I could go to college and do something important in life.”

Graduating from high school in 2005, Victor also progressed into TELACU’s College Success Program. He recalls that “the financial support provided to me as a Scholar helped me excel in school. I was able to better focus on my academics, which helped me land four summer internships at NASA.”

Victor’s work at NASA also helped him decide on a career path in the sciences. After receiving his undergraduate degree from UCLA, Victor was accepted into the graduate program at CSU Los Angeles, where he earned his Master’s degree in Computer Science. While there, Victor had the opportunity to focus on his academics through a Fellowship from the National Science Foundation, which covered his full tuition and provided stipend money for him to do Master’s-level research.

“Through my experiences at TELACU, I learned how invaluable programs like this are. They inspired my passion for empowering other young Latinx to pursue their academic goals and attain higher education,” concludes Victor.

That passion continues today. Since 2015, Victor’s career has been focused on education. He has developed training programs and courses with McGraw-Hill Education, LinkedIn, and Orange County Code School. He currently leads a UI Engineering team on instructor and student applications for creating and managing assignments used in K-12 and Higher Education; and he is also an active contributor to a shared UI component library used across engineering organizations.