Santiago Escutia makes a better life for his family

Criminal justice major takes the degree route to provide more security for his son

By California State University, Bakersfield

March 8^th, 2021

When Santiago Escutia, criminal justice major at California State University, Bakersfield, was younger, he saw his parents struggle. Escutia knew he didn’t want to work in the fields and needed to find a career path.

“School really got my attention because counselors and teachers, they would try to help me,” said Escutia.

Escutia didn’t care much for school, but when he became a father at 15, his son gave him the motivation to go.

“I chose CSUB because – the main reason was my son,” said Escutia. “It was closer to where I live,” noting that he lives in Arvin.

It gave him a chance to pursue his education and visit his son every day.

“My freshmen year at CSUB was really difficult at first,” said Escutia.

It was during that time that he learned how to navigate and plan his time out between work, school and spending time with his son.

By the time the second semester came around, he had more friends on campus and his study habits improved.

Due to the pandemic, his father recently lost his job, which led to Escutia working a second job to help support his family by paying the bills and finding time to go to school.

As a father, Escutia understands what his parents had to go through of working to pay the bills. They were forced to get the shifts they had in order to provide food and what they needed to survive.

In spite of this, Escutia is most proud of the fact that he hasn’t failed any of his classes at CSUB. He’s known others that have, and it has set them back a couple semesters. Fortunately, he hasn’t had to experience the same turmoil.

Escutia wanted to get into the criminal justice field when he was younger, but thought it just consisted of being police officer. It wasn’t until he started researching that he found that there were many other angles.

Looking forward to the future and what’s to come after Escutia receives his degree, he said, “I want to be a probation officer.”

“I’m just one person. I know I’m not going to be able to change everything. If I could impact an individual’s life and help the individual to be a better father, mother – that’s an impact I would like to do,” said Escutia.

Escutia wants to be able to have a job that allows him to spend time with his son and the financial freedom to do what he wants.

Throughout his time at CSUB, Escutia remains thankful for his professors and the counselors at CSUB, because they go above and beyond to help the students.

“I tell them the stories about all of the counselors that I meet and how they help me,” Escutia said about sharing his experiences with friends at other universities.

They haven’t necessarily had the same stories to tell.

As for celebrating the university’s 50th anniversary and being part of it, Escutia said, “That’s honestly a great moment, because the school has lasted 50 years plus. We’re going to be part of that legacy, so that’s great for us.”