ASU, helping local Angelenos find jobs after graduation

Kiana Tovar, a Carson resident originally from Peru, is a community relations coordinator for the Los Angeles Clippers. Still, her journey through higher education and post-graduation life took work.

Tovar immigrated to the United States with her parents and younger brother in 2012, when she was 17 years old.

Tovar, who spent years in community college, encountered language and cultural barriers. She also had to deal with family’s immigration status and her own but found support and encouragement at Arizona State University (ASU).

The university’s California Center Broadway campus is located in Downtown Los Angeles.

Since the local campus opened up in 2018, local LA residents have begun to step into the university, which was recently ranked #2 in the nation for employable graduates and 13th overall in the U.S. among international universities by the Global Employability University Ranking & Survey. “My parents wanted a better life for me and my brother, they wanted me to have a good education and overall, a good life... I'm so thankful for that but the move was challenging,” Tovar said.

Her education journey began in the U.S. at 17, when her counselor suggested she enter as a 10th grader. “I was about to be 18. In reality, I was supposed to be a senior but they wanted me to be a sophomore; that would put me back even further... My mom fought against that recommendation and they agreed for me to go into 11th grade,” Tovar said.

In 2015, after graduating from Banning High School in Wilmington, Tovar enrolled in El Camino Community College, where she spent 4 years. Although Tovar was able to learn and communicate in English, many classes were still hard to understand in her non-native language of Spanish. “Community colleges are highly impacted and it felt like they don't have time for you. At that time, everything was still difficult,” she said.

As she navigated community college as a first-generation student, Tovar also had one major issue that would consume a lot of her time and energy, her immigration status. “On top of college, being an adult, I was in the process of figuring out my residency and status in this country, not just for me but also for my parents, who, unlike me, did not speak any English.”

Tovar felt discouraged many times throughout her time in community college, which was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, because of how long she had been there without transferring and her age, but it was the support of her parents that pushed her toe graduate from ECC in 2017.

“My parents have always been my biggest supporters and always pushed me to excel. We are all so close and having the support of my family has been the biggest gift throughout all of this,” she said.

Tovar knew she wanted to transfer to a local 4-year college, where she would be able to pursue her career and educational journey and at the same time be near her family, which made getting accepted to Sacramento State University very exciting. That was until she realized how much more difficult it was going to be to navigate transferring and applying for financial aid for the first time.

“Once I got accepted, it was so hard to even get an appointment with someone [from] admissions,“ she said. “Decision day was coming and I was already supposed to pay for a spot at Sacramento State University but I had not even gotten the chance to talk to a counselor... Maybe it was a cultural shock, but I remember thinking, how am I going to give them my money if I don’t know what they are offering me academically and financially. It truly felt like I was just a number that they needed to fill and move on to the next one.”

Through an advertisement on Instagram, Tovar saw and learned about ASU Local and just days later, she was admitted and began her classes in fall 2021, when she was 26 years old. “When I clicked the ad, it referred me to a Google Sheet, and I was curious so I put all my information on the form. I did not think much about it, but the following day, someone from recruitment called me,“ she said. “They gave me so much information and by the end of that week, I was already enrolled. I had already talked to financial aid. I had already talked to my counselor, to admissions and I had even met with my advisor.“

Two years later, in 2023, Tovar graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and media studies from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

ASU is classified as a Hispanic Serving Institution, with more than 25% of their students identifying as Latinos. According to ASU Career Services, many of their graduates land jobs with some of the biggest employers in the world, such as Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, Google, American Express, Honeywell, Deloitte and others.

Tovar said that what distinguished ASU from other universities was the attention and support they offered her. “ASU would tell us that their job did not finish after we received our degrees, they wanted to help us secure a job before leaving the school. To me, that was extremely valuable because I wanted to begin working,” she said. “Every semester, they would send us a questionnaire and evaluation form of the classes and programs they offered so that we could give them feedback. I was part of the student leadership team at ASU and they would consult us for every hiring position.”

Tovar began her job with the Los Angeles Clippers in September 2023, three months before she graduated from ASU. “I entered ASU when I was 26 years old. Most of my friends had already graduated three or four years ago. So I came in, telling myself it was not going to take me more than two years to graduate and start my career. There was a semester when I took 6 or 7 classes, but I did it,” Tovar said.

Tovar recently got a job offer as a Foundation Content Coordinator with the Memphis Grizzlies. She hopes to continue her career and inspire other Latino immigrant students to reach their career and academic goals.