First-Generation Students Spring Ahead through Spring Forward Program

The pilot program allows students to get hands-on experience by working at local organizations during the break

Sophomore All Kibria at the Duke Lemur Center, where he worked over spring break.
Sophomore All Kibria at the Duke Lemur Center, where he worked over spring break.

Last year during Duke’s spring break, sophomore Jonathan Torres-Tomas went home to Hendersonville, the western North Carolina town about 240 miles from Durham.

“It wasn’t too far to travel, Torres-Tomas said. “I relaxed at home with my family and my dog. I recharged to get ready for the final stretch of the academic year.”

Torres-Tomas didn’t go home this year. Instead, he took advantage of a new program for first and second-year students and interned at the Duke University Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics. He spent three days on an intern team devising a salary and benefits calculation tool for graduate students.

Torres-Tomas was one of 21 students who participated in Spring Forward, a three-day pilot program sponsored by the Duke University Career Center, in partnership with Duke LIFE, a Duke office that supports first-generation, low-income students.  

The students interned at nine locations on and off campus, including Duke Athletics, Book Harvest, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, BioPharma and Protect3D.

Spring Forward was created to give first and second-year first-generation and lower-income students hands-on experiences working in teams at local organizations in and around Durham. Participants received $750 at week’s end to cover any costs they would incur. About 50 percent of Duke students receive some type of financial aid, and about 20 percent of its undergraduate students come from limited income backgrounds and are the first in their family to attend college.

“I’m always on the lookout for opportunities on campus, especially for first-generation, low-income students,” explained All Kibria, a 19-year-old first-year student from Richmond, Virginia, who interned at the Duke University Lemur Center. “It sounded like a great opportunity for career preparation.”

I want to form relationships with people I wouldn’t have met otherwise, from all walks of life.

Jonathan Torres-Tomas, sophomore

Spring Forward’s inaugural class members are go-getters, and highly motivated.

Consider Duke freshman Victoria Ayodele. 

The 19-year-old Nigerian American grew up in Atlanta. She was in the ninth grade at Lithonia High School in DeKalb County when she founded The Cognition Club to help improve the student body’s standardized test scores. 

The club focused on preparing for the tests and on factors that might help boost students’ chances of success, like nutrition and getting a good night’s sleep.

Ayodele said she chose Duke because it’s close to home and she could visit her family easily yet could still “step outside of my comfort zone and develop a stronger sense of identity outside my native community.”

Ayodele interned with the Duke University Health System, where she worked in talent acquisition, helping create different media tools on a university website and reviewing prospective members. She was tutored on what qualifications to look for in a wide array of disciplines, particularly with the health system’s search for nurses and respiratory doctors.

“There’s an emphasis on passion,” said Ayodele, who wants to become a neurologist.

Ayodele said that working with Duke Health gave her experience working with and around professionals in a field closely related to the profession she hopes to work in one day.

Kibria arrived for his first day of work at the Lemur Center at 8:30 a.m. to begin an internship focused on data management and organization.

Kibria said he tracked “historic data,” like how much a lemur weighs.

“There are 13 different species,” he said. “Their weight depends on their size.”

Kibria hopes the Spring Forward program will give him a little more work experience, as he continues to explore campus opportunities and “find the right fit for me.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting new people with similar backgrounds and making new friends on spring break,” he added.

Torres-Tomas, who is pursuing a double major in computer science and economics, is the recipient of two prestigious scholarships: the QuestBridge National College Match Scholarship and the Golden Door Scholarship.

He’s taken classes in intermediate microeconomics, data structures and algorithms, and multivariable calculus. His interests outside the classroom include membership with the Duke Real Estate Club. He’s proficient in Japanese and plays trombone with the school’s marching band at the basketball and football teams’ home games.

“I got a lot going on, but I enjoy it,” Torres-Tomas said with a short chuckle.

Torres-Tomas spent his internship helping create a salary and benefits information tool for Ph.Ds. and master’s graduates that compares salaries and figures out federal and state income taxes.

“There’s not one place to find all of that,” Torres-Tomas explained. “We have to create a tool where all of that information is in one place.”

Torres-Tomas said interning with Spring Forward was also a good way to make connections.

“I want to form relationships with people at Duke that I wouldn’t have met otherwise, from all walks of life,” he said.