SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½

How a business student found purpose combining data and ethics

Everyone needs their little self-care rituals. For Raechel Guevara ’25, visiting Academic Coffee in downtown San Jose and thrifting are two of her favorite ways to unwind after a long week.

But when she needs to clear her mind and ground herself, she’ll often go on hour-long walks around SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s campus, exploring the residential neighborhoods and waving at the families who were once strangers, but now recognize her. 

A little exercise, a little music, and a lot of inner peace…

It’s always a perfect opportunity to reflect on how far she’s come: from struggling with imposter syndrome and burnout, to being the first in her family to graduate from college and beginning a career at internationally-renowned consulting firm EY this fall.

It’s been a life-changing, whirlwind journey, she says, but one that would not have been possible without the community and sense of purpose she gained as a Bronco.

“That’s the reason why I feel so grateful for my experience at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½. I wake up in the morning happy to be here, and when I was younger, there was a time in my life when I didn’t always feel like that. I’ve really come leaps and bounds.”

Unlearning imposter syndrome

Guevara grew up in Patterson, California, a small, predominantly immigrant community in the Central Valley. It was a friendly place to grow up, she says, but college wasn’t in the cards for most of her classmates because of the cost.

Her mother pushed her all the same to always do her best academically. One day, Guevara found herself in the AVID program with an assignment to apply to a four-year university.

“I was born in San Jose and my brother still lives here, so when we’d drive over to visit him, we would pass by SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, and I just loved the school—I thought it was so pretty,” she recalls. “I didn’t really know anything about it, but I applied on a whim. I didn’t even realize that a lot of people have high school counselors review their essays or anything like that.”

A month later, on her 15-minute work break at Walmart, she got her acceptance letter—and a few days later, a full-ride scholarship courtesy of the Jack & Carolyn Lewis Family endowment.

“It was like my whole world changed.”

Guevara’s family encouraged her to seize the opportunity, and the next year, she was one of only five students from the top ten percent of her class who went to a four-year university.

It was a huge blessing, she says, but not without its growing pains. In Patterson, most people looked like Guevara, and during LEAD Week, she explored her new home shoulder-to-shoulder with other first-generation students.

“But, my first day in the business school, I felt so out of place,” she recalls. “I was surrounded by kids who went to private schools, and I felt so behind and like I didn’t know anything.”

On top of that, balancing a full-time off-campus job and her new college workload was much more challenging than Guevara expected, and despite her academic excellence in high school, she ended up dropping three classes her first year. Though she considered dropping out, she was no stranger to challenges and didn’t want to give up.

As a teenager, Guevara struggled with severe mental health issues and wasn’t always sure if she’d make it to 17. But through therapy and learning how to ask for help, she was able to turn her life around, so she channeled those same lessons during her rockiest times at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½.

During her sophomore year, Guevara changed her study habits, made friends with other first-generation students in her business program, and regularly went to her professors’ office hours. She also took a more active role in the LEAD Scholars Program, mentoring other first-gen students through that tough college transition.

“I remember how lost I felt my first year, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel like that. After getting more involved on campus, I wasn’t afraid to be myself anymore—I realized I deserved to be here just as much as everyone else.”

The advice she gives to incoming first-generation students is simple: be kind to yourself, and don’t be afraid to ask for support.

“There are so many resources on campus, and if you’re feeling overwhelmed or alone, talk about it with your friends. More likely than not, they’re probably going through the same thing,” adds Guevara. “The community LEAD gave me has played the largest role in removing my imposter syndrome and making me feel like I belong here.”

Turning ethical values into numerical ones

Since Guevara knew virtually nothing about SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ when she arrived, she got to know the school’s Jesuit, Catholic values gradually through her courses and her regular attendance at the Mission Church’s weekly student Mass. Over time, she was thrilled to realize that the school’s values—especially its commitment to Pope Francis’ Laudato Si' message—aligned so deeply with what mattered to her.

“I’ve always been interested in sustainability—I recycle, buy secondhand, and care about climate change, social justice, and racial justice,” she explains. “I’ve loved being at a school where they advocate for a lot of those things, and it really inspired me to want to work somewhere that I could practice what I’m studying, but be proud of what they stand for.”

So, when a role as a data and analytics sustainability coordinator opened at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½’s Center of Sustainability, it seemed like a perfect fit for her expertise with numbers and data management.

The role saw Guevara transforming campus sustainable data sets into easy-to-understand visualizations—including energy usage, wastewater, solar power generation, sustainable event attendance, transportation surveys, and even how much free clothing was given away by the new campus thrift shop, Bucky’s Closet.

These visualizations not only make the Center for Sustainability’s work more tangible, but as a business student, Guevara understands how important this kind of data is for an organization’s bottom line, whether that’s maintaining the campus’ Gold Star sustainability rating or securing additional funding for Bucky’s Closet and other initiatives like it.

“I definitely think it’s a crucial intersection,” Guevara says. “The more business classes I took, the more I realized that sustainability is something that corporate America really cares about, because the more efficient you are as a company, the more money that’s available to shareholders.”

She saw this corporate commitment in action during her junior year internship at EY, a company that prides itself on its commitment to environmental justice and sustainability. There, she worked on technology risk audits for Apple and Juniper, two Silicon Valley tech giants, making sure password management, biometric IDs, and iCloud chains were secure for customers.

Not only did she apply the skills she gained at the Leavey School of Business, but she ended up getting a full-time job offer starting this fall—an opportunity that not only allows her to do good in the world, but also do well, financially. 

“My family is so excited,” Guevara gushes. “I just wanted to be able to take care of my family, and I’m very fortunate that this job puts me in a really good position so my parents won’t have to worry about a lot. And because of what I learned at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½, it’s always going to be important to work somewhere that has the same values as me and is contributing to the betterment of the world.”

Reflecting on her journey, Guevara says that her time at SA¹ú¼Ê´«Ã½ has affirmed her belief that everything happens for a reason.

At 16, Guevara didn’t plan on having a future. Then, she applied to one four-year university on a whim—and got a full scholarship to attend a school that affirmed her core values. Fast-forward, she applied to 200 internships, and got just one acceptance—and it ended up being at a company known for giving full-time offers. 

“When I think about my life and where I am right now, I just think how lucky I am that it 
unfolded the way that it did,” she says. “There was just something bigger for me planned, and I can’t even describe how grateful I am to the Lewis family for funding my education.”