There was nothing in Yesenia Portillo’s background growing up in an underserved family in Orange that illustrated she would eventually graduate with honors from UCLA. Nothing in Venuri Weerarathne’s background growing up in Sri Lanka that revealed UC Irvine was in her future.
Nothing on the surface showed this was the path for both first-generation college students, that is, save for raw, unbridled intelligence mixed with a feral determination that refused to allow doubt to creep in.
Even when Portillo was working nights as an assistant manager at Little Caesars, along with a half dozen extracurriculars and a full load of classes at Santiago Community College. And even as Weerarathne walked onto the SCC campus in 2023, not knowing anyone or anything about college life other than she wanted to live it.
There would be no other acceptable path for either. And while their paths didn’t cross at SCC, it too served as a common — yet necessary — launching pad. The assistance both Portillo and Weerarathne received at SCC opened doors and revealed opportunities neither of them knew existed.
In Portillo’s case, that meant two things: the TRiO Program and filling every conceivable hour with extracurriculars. TRiO is a series of federally funded educational programs designed to support individuals from low-income families, first-generation college students or students with disabilities. The program offers services including counseling, tutoring, mentoring and financial assistance.
“I was really grateful to be part of this program. It opened doors for me,” she said. “Honestly, if it wasn’t for SCC and TRiO, I would never have considered UCLA. That bridged the gap in my education. Being exposed to that program helped a lot. They helped with the application process and helped me get exposure to multiple universities. TRiO allowed me to expand my options.”
In the meantime, Portillo was expanding her portfolio. When she wasn’t working at Little Caesars, there were the eight workshops she had to do as a Promise Scholar, serving as the public relations commissioner for the Inter-Club Council, working as a student assistant at SCC’s first-year support center, where she gave back to a program that gave her a lifeline when she started at SCC in 2020.
And through it all, she put together a 3.75 grade-point average that — along with TRiO’s support and eye-opening revelation that a UC school was realistic — brought her to UCLA in 2023.
“I never considered any UCs when I stepped onto UCLA’s campus. The moment I did, I fell in love with the idea of being in L.A.,” Portillo said. “Overall, it felt like I was in church. I fell in love with the campus and the diversity, and I felt instantly comfortable being there and feeling welcomed.
“SCC prepared me in the sense of being a full-time student, but the academics were different. UCLA was an R1 (research) university, and it was highly rigorous. I did face a lot of challenges adapting to the quarter system and academics, but I enrolled in summer courses to get a head start, and luckily, it helped me mentally prepare for what an actual 10-week quarter system was like.”
Two years and a stint as a McNair Research Scholar — a TRiO-related program that provides students with research funding and mentoring — later, Portillo walked across the stage at her graduation, the proud owner of a 3.8 GPA in sociology with a minor in educational studies. She’s now about to start a master’s program in college counseling at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
From Sri Lanka to UC Irvine
Based on her emigration from Sri Lanka in 2022, you could say Weerarathne — who just graduated from SCC in May with a 3.67 GPA and associate degrees in business administration, economics and liberal arts — traveled a longer path than Portillo. And in a geographic sense, you’d be right.
But the old saying that it’s not the destination, it’s the journey serves as the theme to the trail that led Weerarathne to UCI. And SCC also played an integral role, even if it took her longer than Portillo to realize it.
“I went to SCC, and the first semester wasn’t the best,” she said, admitting to feeling overwhelmed and underinformed about what she was getting into. “After that, I started adapting and realized SCC has a lot to offer me. I didn’t have any friends; there was literally no one I knew there. It took a bit to understand everything. I didn’t know office hours existed.
“It was my first college experience, and on top of that, I’m a first-generation college student. My parents had never been to college. They didn’t know how to help me. So, I was navigating college for all of us.”
Like Portillo, Weerarathne discovered TRiO, which would eventually lead her to discover her current destination: the business and economics program at UCI. But before that, one counselor provided a necessary revelation that straightened what could have been a labyrinthine path.
“She told me, ‘If you want to achieve something, or if you need help, you have to ask. If you don’t ask, you won’t get help. Be brave enough to ask for help,’ ” Weerarathne said.
So Weerarathne shed her shyness and, like — Portillo — got past a rocky first semester and dived headlong into extracurriculars. She joined the Inter-Club Council and several other clubs, made friends and made other connections. One connection, a student services coordinator at SCC who noticed Weerarathne had a head for accounting, told her she should consider accounting as a profession.
Originally thinking that was boring, Weerarathne hesitated — until she learned about forensic accounting. Investigating fraud and rooting out corruption sounded a heck of a lot more interesting. And now the same course Weerarathne found as exciting as peeling paint is something she tutors other students in.
Now, Weerarathne is about to take her next step at UCI, a step she never saw coming two years ago. Like Portillo, that step came with more confidence and purpose than either of them ever realized.