On The Climb - Aaron Molina
On The Climb is a new series where we bring stories from our students who are on their journey to academic and career success.
Aaron and I have known each other for over 5 years. I believe one of my earliest and favorite memories involved a chess game I played with Aaron, then a High School Junior who had me absolutely sweating during each move. I won the game only because he made a mistake, and Aaron doesn't make mistakes. I knew how brilliant he was then, and its amazing to see that nothing has changed. Other than where we both live now. I moved from Franklin Township, NJ a suburb nestled between the states 2 most prestigious universities. Aaron is now a second year undergraduate at Princeton University - 30 minutes from where I grew up.
Aaron Molina
Secretary, Board of Directors - Princeton University Class of 2026
Aaron is our Student Ambassador Coordinator and is a member of our Board of Directors. He is a first-generation low-income student from Brownsville, TX (the place I call home now). So I'm dying to know how he's adjusted to the change not just physically, but academically, emotionally, and all the ways in between.
I expected to hear the usual things we hear from students - living by yourself is hard, time-management is hard, balancing the social life and the academic rigor is very hard. We definitely know that these are the challenges for a student at an Ivy League. I was surprised to hear this was the case from Aaron, the brilliant mind who let me win at chess. So I asked him tell me about his experience in detail:
"Instead of competing with my high school peers where we all share similar backgrounds, here at Princeton, we have a diverse array of students. It is very challenging to find Equity or Equality in terms of education because one person in the classroom out of a hundred might have gone to a private school with tutoring and additional resources and a tenth of the students in the class might have gone in public school where they did not have that access."