School’s alumni adviser hits the road to ease first-year college students’ jitters

Not long ago. Dulce Grant was a college freshman, nervous and unsure as the first in her family to attend college. Now 27 with a bachelor’s degree in political, legal and economic analysis, she’s mentoring other students from her high school facing the same insecurities and pressures. Occasionally, she stops by campuses to see how they’re doing.

On this day, early in December, she wheeled a wagon with cardboard boxes for a half-dozen first-year students at Cal State East Bay in Hayward to an outdoor table behind the student union.