My Swat Story: David Molina Cavazos ’20

He Found Early Inspiration in Minecraft

“There was a dad out there who made a tutorial series that was featured online, and it was him explaining the different mechanics of Minecraft. I watched these videos religiously, because kids get really fixated on weird things. Eventually, he uploaded a video talking about the software he used to record the gameplay, and I thought, ‘That's free. I can download that.’ Later, I realized that I was having more fun recording the video and stitching it all together, doing these really bad but creative edits. And I said, ‘Why don't I just do that instead of playing video games all the time?’”

A Swarthmore Course Helped Him Navigate Identity

“I took ‘Latin America Through the Novel’ with Professor Braulio Muñoz, and the books blew my mind. A lot of different things about my parents and some of the things that they talked about there, all of it really opened up to me. I was able to understand my culture and the disconnect between how I grew up and how my parents grew up, in particular. I grew up here in the States and they grew up purely in Mexico, so that class really made me understand and appreciate that difference.”

The QuestBridge Logo Caught his Eye

“I was about to throw the QuestBridge pamphlet away, but I thought the logo looked cool so I read it and then showed it to my guidance counselor, who shrugged at me. He said, ‘All right, go for it.’  Over the summer, my family and I packed everything up and took the three-hour drive to Stanford for a conference where all of the different colleges go. That was when the realization of what QuestBridge was dawned on me, because I was able to talk to the Swarthmore counselor. I was able to explain my situation, and then they were able to help me out there. Had it not been for QuestBridge, I never would've even heard about Swarthmore.”