PATH Program

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Funded by a generous 4-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Preparing Accomplished Transfers to the Humanities (PATH) is a collaborative transfer support program between the San Diego Community College District and the University of California, San Diego Division of Arts and Humanities. PATH guides transfer students from City, Mesa, and Miramar Colleges into arts and humanities majors at UC San Diego and includes:

A systematic approach to the recruitment, retention, and professional success of Humanities transfer students
Faculty collaboration between both institutions through shared programs, teaching and support activities (PDF)
Emphasis on the foundational, transferable, enduring role of the Humanities

PATH Peer Mentee Program

The application for the 2025-2026 academic year is now Open.

Interested in joining in the near future? Submit your information to our Peer Mentee Interest form.

PATH Program at City, Mesa, and Miramar Colleges

Transfer guidance to UC San Diego in an Arts and/or Humanities discipline major
Monthly meetings with mentors and program staff
Participation in career exploration and outreach activities
Project-based and service learning opportunities
Career field trips
Networking with community-based organizations
Recurring workshops
Arts and Humanities programming
Student Stipend

Program Eligibility

Students from San Diego City, Mesa or Miramar Colleges
Interested in and qualify for transfer to UC San Diego, with a major in the Arts and Humanities
Be a first year student on track to complete approximately 30 units
Be a second year student with a minimum of 24 units, with the intent to complete a total minimum of 60 units by the end of spring 2026 in order to be eligible for transfer admission.
Have a cumulative minimum of a 3.0 GPA

PATH Mentee Internship

Gain real-world experience, enhance your resume, and develop professional skills in a supportive environment. The PATH Internship Program offers a unique opportunity to connect with mentors, contribute to meaningful projects, and prepare for your future while exploring career pathways in the Arts & Humanities.

As a PATH intern, you will:

Gain hands-on experience in a professional environment
Develop key skills in marketing, event coordination, and outreach
Work alongside dedicated faculty and staff who are passionate about student success
Expand your professional network and make valuable connections
Receive paid experience while making a meaningful impact

Over a six-week period (5 hours per week), you will contribute to dynamic and engaging projects, such as:

Designing flyers and promotional materials
Managing social media and outreach initiatives
Organizing materials and resources
Supporting campus events and student programs

This internship is a fantastic way to develop leadership experience, gain professional skills, and make a lasting impact in the Arts & Humanities community.

Interested in hosting a PATH Intern?

The PATH Internship Program offers an exciting opportunity to engage with talented, motivated students while providing them with meaningful hands-on experience in a professional setting.

By hosting a student intern for six weeks (five hours per week—whether one full day or one hour per day), you’ll gain a dedicated team member who can assist with essential tasks and support the next generation of arts and humanities scholars.

To host please submit an Interest & Inquiry Form

PATH Summer Academy at UC San Diego

The PATH Summer Academy is a week-long program designed to help students acclimate to university life at UC San Diego before the Fall Quarter begins. Participants will:

Engage in workshops that introduce key campus resources and programs
Access academic and professional development opportunities
Connect with current and former PATH transfer students to learn about their experiences at UC San Diego
Participate in optional social activities
Explore diverse career opportunities within the humanities
Familiarize themselves with the UC San Diego campus

This immersive experience prepares students for success as they embark on their academic journey at UC San Diego.

Learn more about the Summer Academy

Eligibility Requirements:

Must have attended San Diego City College, Mesa College, or Miramar College
Must have been accepted to UC San Diego for the upcoming academic year
Must be pursuing a major within the Arts & Humanities at UC San Diego (Minors are not eligible)

Read about the 2020 PATH Summer Academy here: “Planting the Seeds for Transfer Student Success”

Integrated Fellowship Initiative for Ph.D. Students

In collaboration between UCSD and the San Diego Community College District, The PATH Integrated Fellowship Initiative offers mentorship and leadership experience in the community college system for UCSD Ph.D. Candidates in the Arts and Humanities. Fellows will be introduced to a range of academic leadership positions and career options within the Community College system and focus on three major components: teaching, administration, and mentoring. See past year's Fellows (PDF).

Bianca Negrete Coba

bianca negrete coba red hair red lipstick striped blazer Bianca Negrete Coba is a mixed-race Chicana from west Chula Vista. She is currently a UCSD PhD Candidate in Literature and Cultural Studies with a Specialization in Critical Gender Studies set to graduate Spring 2026. She is the first in her family to attend a university, an achievement she attributes to her four years as an AVID student in high school (a college prep program for marginalized first-generation students). Bianca attended UC Merced, where she intended to major in Environmental Engineering but ended up getting a BA in English with a Minor in Writing because she found reading, writing, and thinking about the environment more culturally impactful in the Humanities. In the English and Writing programs at UC Merced, Bianca developed her poetry and creative writing and wrote a senior thesis about ecocriticism focusing on Brando Skyhorse’s novel The Madonnas of Echo Park (2010). She stayed at UC Merced for her MA in Interdisciplinary Humanities, where she focused on Environmental Philosophy, Literature and Sexuality, and Posthumanism and Cinematic Ecology. Bianca is currently working on her dissertation tentatively titled Chicanx Displacement Stories: From L.A.’s “Chavez Ravine” to S.D.’s Barrio Logan and South Bay, teaching, volunteering in the Community Archive at the Chicano Park Museum and Cultural Center, and lovingly mothering her silly and tenacious toddler.

Caleb Mertz-Vega

Caleb Mertz-Vega was born and raised in Pennsylvania but found his way out to San Diego with a spark for adventure and a desire to get out of the small town he is from. He earned his Associates for Transfer in English and Spanish mostly at San Diego City college then transferred to UC Berkeley where he earned his double B.A. in English and Spanish. Caleb has even been featured on City College’s English website as a student spotlight. He is now a PhD candidate in the literature department at UCSD studying LGBTQ+ literature from and about Venezuela and Colombia. Over the summer, he’s been working to better understand how absence and masculinity work with, against, and through each other in regional literatures. Recently, through the Speculative Environmental Futures Mellon grant, his research took him to Bogotá, Colombia and Mexico City, Mexico, both places he is excited to return to.

Caleb is an older wiser learner, since he spent the many years immediately after high school to pursue restaurant work. He is also a multipassioned individual who has self-published three novels but has a long history of tinkering with cars, learning html, doing voice over, and trying to start his own business. Community college was an opportunity for him to learn more about the craft of writing and the power of words, simultaneously teaching him the power of focusing on something long term. Debatably inspired most by the professorshe had in community college, he hopes to bring a similar inspiration to the PATH program. Additionally, he hopes to provide mentorship and guidance to those interested in transferring because as a first-generation college student he remembers feeling lost a lot of the time.

Aimee Jurado

Aimee Jurado is a PhD candidate in UCSD’s Literature department. She received her B.A. in English from California State University, Fullerton and an M.A. from UCSD’s Literature program. Her dissertation, Fermented Subjects: Asian American Subjectivity Contained and Transformed, examines Asian American memoir form, incarceration, parent-child relationships, and U.S militarization as different structural and literary containers that inevitably shape Asian American being. Ultimately, her work studies what comes of Asian immigrant families when contained, under pressure, over a period of time - much like the fermentation of cultural foods like kimchi. As the daughter of Filipino immigrants and a first-generation student, Aimee’s research and pedagogy cannot help but attend to the immigrant family and the experiences of first-generation students and people. She has been able to foster her commitment to these communities while teaching for the Dimensions of Culture (DOC) writing program, the Literature department’s multiethnic American literature sequence, and as a mentor for the Graduate Application Mentorship Program (GradAMP). Her writing can be found in the Body Matters issue of Women's Studies Quarterly.

Pablo dodero

Pablo Dodero Carrillo is a PhD candidate in Music at UC San Diego. His research examines the history and historiography of electronic music in Mexico, focusing on how instrument design, language, and access intersect with the transnational circulation of music technologies and their adoption into localized practices. He is particularly interested in inclusive and experimental archival methods that expand how electronic music histories are written and remembered. His work has appeared in Emille: Journal of the Korean ElectroAcoustic Music Society, and he has presented at international conferences including Harvard University’s Instruments, Interfaces, Infrastructures. He has also collaborated on reissues of historically significant albums such as Música Electroacústica Mexicana, contributing to the preservation and renewed circulation of Latin American experimental sound practices.

As an educator, Pablo has taught courses and workshops on sound, technology, and music history at UC San Diego, UCSD Academic Connections, and A Reason to Survive (ARTS). Beyond the classroom, he has contributed to community-centered projects including Blacktronika: No Manual for Google Arts & Culture, Music on the Move with the Center for World Music, and the documentary series Los Años Dorados. His own experience as a community college student was deeply formative, and as a Mellon PATH fellow, he looks forward to supporting transfer and first-generation students while advancing inclusive, globally informed approaches to the study of electronic music.

Boris Acosta Jaramillo

Boris Acosta-Jaramillo is a pianist, composer, educator, and researcher specializing in jazz improvisation, instrumental multivocality, performance, and music production. As a Ph. D. candidate in Music (Integrative Studies) at UC San Diego, his work investigates how sound serves as a reflection of cultural identities, histories, and traditions.

Boris holds a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and a Master of Arts from Queens College in New York City. His academic journey is driven by a profound passion for exploring the intersections of music, culture, and identity—an interest that continues to shape both his research and creative endeavors.

With over 20 years of experience, Boris has performed internationally at prestigious festivals such as the Blue Note Jazz Festival and the Shanghai Jazz Festival. He has collaborated with renowned artists including Henry Threadgill, Mark Dresser, and Terell Stafford. His interdisciplinary approach seamlessly integrates research, performance, composition, improvisation, music production, and community engagement, inspiring future generations through the transformative power of music.

Joy Miller

joy miller glasses white shirt hair slicked back Joy Miller is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of California, San Diego, specializing in African American labor history and migration. Her dissertation, "Freedom and Sugar: African American Laborers and Hawaiian Sugar Plantations in the 20th Century," explores how race, labor, and empire shaped the experiences of African American workers in Hawai‘i’s sugar industry. She holds an M.A. in History from California State University San Marcos, where her research focused on African American political cartoonists in the NAACP’s The Crisis, and a B.A. in History, where she served as president of the History Club.

Her work engages both scholarly and public audiences, with service on the San Diego Historical Resources Board and presentations at national conferences, including the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association. Miller is committed to advancing Ethnic Studies in higher education and currently teaches at multiple Southern California community colleges, where her pedagogy emphasizes racial justice, community engagement, and critical historical inquiry. She has also served as a teaching associate for UCSD’s History Department, Ethnic Studies, and the Making of the Modern World program.

Path Highlights

	March 10, 2020: Reclaiming Our Stories 2: A Reclaiming the Humanities Speaker Series event at City College. Authors Graciela Uriarte, David Grant, and Candice Tan-Custidio otherwise known as ‘DJ Kuttin Kandi’, read their very own moving pieces from the book “Reclaiming Our Stories 2”.
	November 20, 2019: Reclaiming the Humanities Speakers Series Event at Miramar College. Students were able to academic and professional journeys of guest speakers: Los Angeles artist Mario Ybarra, UC San Diego graduate student Oscar Magallanes, and Miramar College professor Adrian Arancibia.
	December 4, 2019: For the Love of the Humanities- A Reclaiming the Humanities Speakers Series event at Mesa College. Students learned about the educational and career experiences of Mesa College and UC San Diego Arts and Humanities faculty.