Pablo Montes is a first-generation college student. Shortly after he was born in Beloit, Wisconsin, his family moved back to Mexico for a few years before returning to Beloit. Montes attended Northern Illinois University his freshman year and then transferred to UW-Madison. However, he was not on a scholarship and was not financially prepared to pay Madison rent — especially because he was not aware that he would have to come up with a security deposit in addition to the first month’s rent.
He also didn’t have a job yet, so he ended up spending the entire semester couch-surfing. This made it hard to focus on his studies and also caused resentment on the part of one of the students who lived in the apartment where he was staying. “It made me feel like a burden,” Montes says. He eventually found a job and sublet a room in this apartment when another student left. Still, it made for a very rocky transition.
But Montes figured that he couldn’t be the only student on campus who was facing housing insecurity, and when he found other students in the same situation, they decided to try to do something about it. They met with Dean of Students Lori Berquam, Chancellor Rebecca Blank, and housing administrators about the idea of providing emergency housing for students. The university has now marshaled a task force to address the problem, and Montes hopes that it will be able to create some sort of an emergency resource within the next year or two.
But the struggles were not yet over for Montes, who is now a senior double-majoring in sociology and human development and family studies, with a GPA of 3.8.
“At one point, I had three jobs trying to pay the rent,” he says. This added up to 40 hours of work per week, plus a full course load of 16 credits, and he was spending 10 hours a week doing research for a McNair fellowship. “I took a couple of naps here and there to try to survive,” he says. “It was one of the hardest semesters I’ve ever had in my academic career.”
It’s little wonder that Montes was practically at a loss for words when asked to describe what his Bascom Hill Society scholarship, which will pay full tuition and room and board for his senior year, means to him. “It was a beautiful moment when I received it,” he says. He recalls that when he found out, he was at the airport experiencing a moment of frustration due to flight complications. “I just started crying at the airport [when I got the news],” he says. “Finally, I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to eat tomorrow. I feel proud of the things I’ve done here, and it is humbling and so empowering to know that the UW is noticing what I’ve done.”
And Montes has done a lot, with a long list of extracurricular activities ranging from helping to organize a campus food pantry to facilitating intercultural dialogue. When he first arrived at UW-Madison, he joined MEChA, a Chicana-student activist group that has provided much support and some of his closest friends.
One of his jobs was serving as a mentor and tutor for middle-school students through Madison’s Centro Hispano. He was profoundly moved by participating in a Black Lives Matter “die-in” at College Library in November 2014. And he’s also president of the Working Class Student Union (WCSU). Even though he would not have to work this year — for the first time in his college career — Montes is going to continue in that paid position simply because he is so invested in the organization. “If it wasn’t for MEChA and WCSU, I don’t think I would have attained the BHS scholarship,” he says, adding that the groups allowed him to make many connections around campus.
Montes is now applying to a half dozen graduate school programs, and he hopes to eventually earn a doctorate in educational policy curriculum and instruction and to effect change through teaching at the college level.
When he experienced firsthand the need for emergency housing on campus, he recalls thinking, “Why doesn’t somebody do something about this?” But then, he says, “I realized, I was that somebody.”
It’s a lesson he will take to heart for the rest of his life.