My First Apartment

ASU has paid for my housing all three years that I have been here, I found it to be very convenient and a fun experience due to the fact that all my classes are located here at the Downtown Phoenix campus. All my classes are literally across the street from the residential hall and overall it is a nice place to live in however, going into my fourth year in the university I have decided to move out and try something. I decided to do this because I feel like as time passes by we all need to move forward, I am always thinking of what comes next and I just didn’t want to spend all four years of my college experience living in the dorm even though the cost is completely covered by the university.

I am aware that living off campus might be a little less convenient and maybe even stressful but I am willing to go through that, I knew this day was going to come sooner or latter and I’m sure it is just going to help me become a bigger person. I will be moving in with two good friends with big goals and aspirations, we all from California and have similar goals so I really don’t see us having problems in the future. I am very excited for this new chapter in my life, I am sure it is going to be very interesting.

Spring Break

I am really excited to go back to Los Angeles and see my family and friends again. This year my schedule allows me to stay for a few more days than usual so I am planning to spend that time with a couple of good friends that I only get to see two or three times a year. We all know each other from our early years in high school and build a good friendship since then. Each of our universities operate under different calendars so we never really have brakes at the same time, that plus the distance factor makes it very hard for us to get together more than twice a year. My best friend George if attending UC Davis in northern California and another one of my good friends decided to stay closer to home and go to USC. We talk to each other on a regular basis but it is always good to get together and share some of our crazy stories.

Most importantly, I want to spend time with my family. Some family members are going through difficult times right now and I want to make sure I am there to support them as much as I can. I will only be in Los Angeles for about a week and a half so I want to maximize my time as much as I can since I will not be going back in at least another two months.  

Kurzweil 3000

This week I was in charge of conducting a presentation/training on Kurzweil 3000 for all staff members in TRIO. Kurzweil 3000 is a software designed to read PDF files to you; this is a great resource for those students with that may have a disability that prevents them from reading or focus on something for a long period of time. As I have mentioned in pervious blogs, some TRIO students are registered with the Student Disability Center here at ASU therefore it is very important for all staff members to know how to use these kind of software’s in order to help others. The software also allows you to bookmark, take notes and highlight any text on the PDF file being read to you.

            I would say that overall the training went well. While preparing my presentation I found that some staff members were not aware that TRIO had Kurzweil 3000 on their computers so I am sure it was an informative presentation for some of them. If you are having trouble reading your PDF files I would highly recommend giving Kurzweil a try, it is available for free tor all ASU students. You can download it by logging into MyASU and going to MyApps under the side menu. You also have to create a username and password so it you have any questions let me know and I can provide you with the link and extra instructions!

Staying Active

Last year was a very crazy year for me. My schedule did not look anything like I had it planed prior to class registration and my classes stressed me out all year long. Thins semester I am trying to stay positive and work on my time management skills to reduce my stress levels. So far I think I am doing a good job at it, I still haven’t stressed over any assignments and I am staying physically active. I found that by going to the gym a few times a week I feel more energized during the day, it really doesn’t take much time out of my day and I can really feel the change. I also play in four different intermural soccer teams outside of ASU, this takes a little bit more of my time and energy than going to the gym since each game is about two hours long and the field are about 20 minutes away from where I live. Overall I am finding that staying active can take you a long way, you just need to get up find your motivation.  

Typical Day at TRIO SSS

Every day is a little different all of us at TRIO. A lot of times I can spend most of my time inputting data into Blumen, this is the software used by most TRIO programs to keep track of the services they provide for students. This is a critical step because the federal government wants proof of students actually taking advantage of the services provided by TRIO SSS. If the federal government feels like we are not being proficient enough they can take the grant away from TRIO SSS. Data input can include minute meetings with advisors, use of the computer lab, coaching/tutoring appointments, printing and any checkout of resources such as books, clickers, calculators and smart pens.

Other days I might work one on one with students and coworkers a little more. Part of my job there is to assist students with any question they might have, for the most part it always involved a piece of equipment in the computer lab or something they checked out from us. While interacting with them it is always interesting to find out how they are doing in school and what some of their general interest are. This is not only good for building a personal connection with them but at the same time I get to see what are the most common areas where they need to improve. In the past we noticed that freshmen were having time management issues, this is understandable considering that they have never been so free ever before. In that situation TRIO takes initiative and provides students with a free time management workshop, in those workshops they get to explore different time management strategies.

How I Became Involved

My parents were always involved in my education one way or another ever since I can remember, they always pushed me to do better and thought me the importance of doing good in school. My freshman in high school they attended a parent conference where they heard about a program specifically designed to help students from my community get to college, at the time they didn’t know how this program operated but it didn’t take long before they signed me up for it. I didn’t have much of a choice; all I knew at the time was that now I had to attend Saturday school at the University of Southern California (USC) and every Wednesday I will have to meet with a college counselor during lunch time.  As you all can imagine at the time I was not very pleased with the idea of having my weekends reduced to only Sundays nor having to give up my lunchtime once a week.

            This program that was going to “take away” so much of my free time was called TRIO USC Upward Bound. Upward Bound is just another branch of the eight TRIO programs I talked about in my last blog. This program is specifically designed to help high school students from low-income communities graduate and attend four-year universities. At the time I thought the program was a waist of time, every Saturday from that point forward I would have to attend Saturday school to review material covered during the week in each one of my classes. Even though as a student athlete it was draining at times as time passed by I realized it wasn’t really all that bad, they helped me keep my grades up throughout all the four years I was in high school and I was making new friends from each of the different high schools that participated in the program.

            Upward Bound served me as an introduction to not only the TRIO programs but to a demanding academic life. Every summer we would have the opportunity to live in the dorms at USC and take college level courses, which was with no doubt one of the best experiences I had throughout high school. As a 15 year old I got to experience what it was like to live on a college campus and I think that was my motivation to graduate and move away from home. There is no doubt that Upward Bound played a huge role to help me get to where I am today, it was definitely not a waste of time and I am thankful for having the opportunity of being part of that program.