Dana Rene Bowler / Star staff From left, Kale Smith; James Martinez, Newbury Park High dean; My Nga Le; and Brianna Hunt build a paper mousetrap in their Engineering Innovations class, part of the Upward Bound program at Cal Lutheran.

Photos by Dana Rene Bowler / Star staff Laura Orozco, left, and Maria Zacarias listen to their teacher Brian Swig during an oceanography class. More than 100 teens from as far away as Micronesia are taking part in the Upward Bound program.

From left, Ryan Goldstein, Duan Harrion II and Erika Tucker work in their Upward Bound class. The program helps youths grow socially and academically.

More than a hundred teenagers, some from as far away as Guam, Hawaii and Micronesia, are spending the summer studying core subjects and life skills at California Lutheran University as part of a program to prepare them for higher education.

The students are taking part in two Upward Bound programs, which offer the chance to spend several weeks in residence at the Thousand Oaks university as well as continued support and extra classes during the school year.

Eduardo Arellano, 14, of Oxnard is attending for the first time and said it has been hard to be away from home. After two weeks on campus, however, the teen, who described himself as "kinda shy," said he's starting to feel more confident and making friends.

"One of my classes is Chinese and that's really exciting," he said. "Also, doing theater arts and swing dancing will help me to be less shy."

Upward Bound Interim Director Sergio Galvez said Eduardo's experience is fairly typical for first-year students.

"They know they're going to be away from home for five weeks and they know they're going to have certain responsibilities," said Galvez. "They need to follow rules. They need to get up on their own. They need to be at breakfast, lunch and dinner at a certain time, and they cannot be late to class."

The regular Upward Bound program at CLU has 56 students from Oxnard and Camarillo schools, and another specializing in math and science — one of three regional programs in California — has 53 students from Ventura County and elsewhere.

Ariel Daniels, 16, of Memphis, Tenn., is spending her second summer in residence as a member of the math and science Upward Bound program.

"It gives me a head start in my classes," she said. "This year I'm taking Algebra 2 when I get home, and I'm also taking it here."

Living a college lifestyle'

She said the program helped her earn all A's the past school year. Spending her summers in Southern California has also earned her some kudos with her classmates.

"My friends have never been out of Memphis," she said. "Last year I was kind of homesick, but it gets fun and you get to experience a different kind of life away from your parents and you get to feel like you're living a college lifestyle."

Martin Ruiz, 15, an upcoming junior at Santa Paula High School, also is in his second year in Upward Bound. "They're teaching me biology and medicine, which I really don't take at my school, and elective classes such as sign language, which looks really good on a transcript when you apply for college," said Martin, who wants to become a mechanical engineer.

Jermaine Dixon, a math teacher at Thousand Oaks High School, has spent the past nine years teaching Upward Bound students.

"The reason I come back is because it's an excellent program," he said. "We have students here who are motivated, and that's not something you always see on a day-to-day basis as a regular math teacher."

Focus on low-income students

Mariana Barajas, 18, who just graduated from Fillmore High School, will be attending UCLA in the fall and is enrolled in Upward Bound for a second year, taking an oceans course that will transfer to college. She's also studying the fundamentals of music.

"I've never played a piano before. I've never even touched a musical instrument," she said, taking time out from a piano lesson with CLU music lecturer Eric Kinsley. "It was overwhelming at first, but I've always wanted to learn an instrument."

The federally funded Upward Bound programs are partly aimed at students from low-income households, many of whom are trying to be the first in their families to attend college. Officials say 100 percent of CLU's Upward Bound participants graduate from high school, and 75 percent complete or are in the process of completing degrees within six years of high school graduation.

"You see a lot of individual growth in each student personally, socially and academically, so it's interesting to see that evolution every summer," said Dixon. "They come in not knowing what to expect, and when they leave, they just have this confidence they can take back with them. You just see their self-esteem come up through the roof."