Thank you TRIO!

Rafael & Davi,

I would really like to thank you for giving me the opportunity of being part of TRIO both as a student and as an intern. Every day was different from the day before and that is something that I really enjoyed throughout the semester. I hope to keep learning from your leadership skills in the time I have left here at ASU. Thank you for always being there for me when things were not going so well, I will never forget all the things you have done for me and I want you to know that. You guys make a great team and have created a family like environment were students speak freely about their thoughts and feelings. You two are inspiring TRIO students day after day and I am sure one day some of them will come back to thank you for everything you are doing. Keep up the good work and I hope to see you again next fall!

Reflecting on my experience at TRIO

This internship allowed me to get a differed perspective on public service and different types of policies that TRIO has. I was a college student just as anyone else in the program so there where times when I felt like I should have helped some students a little more, maybe allowing them to check out a computer or for a longer period of time or things like that. However, those types of request were not under my control and I had to refer them to my supervisor. I knew most of the students in the program and I was even friends with some of them so it was kind of uncomfortable at times. Sitting on the other side of the desk definitely helped me understand why sometimes services are not provided to us the way we want, there are rules and regulations for everything and that plays a huge role in our everyday life.

It was also nice to learn how programs like TRIO have such a positive impact on college students. Students and staff are very conformable with each other; this allows advisors to help students not only academically but with personal matters as well. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, TRIO feels very welcoming and has created a family like environment. I would say that I was fortunate enough to meet every goal that I had back when I did my first blog post. I got to do a little bit of everything around the office, from interacting with students to file paperwork and to even help organize cultural events. It was definitely a great experience and I am definitely planning working with them when I come back in the fall.

Back to Los Angeles?

This will be my last summer going back to Los Angeles before I graduate. I am excided to see my family and friends but at the same time knowing that graduation day is getting closer and closer can be very intimidating, specially because I am not sure if I want to move back to Los Angeles after I graduate. I think that moving away from home to come to ASU made me realize that there are a lot of places to explore and I think I want to continue doing that. I never really traveled a lot before I started college and now that I am older I see things a little bit different, every time I go home I see things in a whole different way. I see things that I like and sometimes even miss when I’m away too long, but I also see things that can be improved. I first realized this after my freshman year in college; I spent about seven months here in Arizona before I got to visit California again and when I did it felt different. Even when I got home it felt like it wasn’t my house, I got so used to living by myself that staying with my family again, even for a couple of days, made me feel out of place.

I will always go back and visit my loved ones but for now I’m still not sure of where I want to live after I graduate.

TRIO Devils Vice President

This academic year I served as vice-president of an organization called TRIO Devils, one of our missions this year was to work hand and hand with TRIO SSS and help them expand their services to non-TRIO students through a student organization. This year we got to volunteer in a couple of places around the Phoenix area as well as events put together by the university, after all the time we spent together inside and outside of meetings I think we all got to know each other really well and that is reflected every time we work on a project. As the academic year is coming to an end our next few meetings are going to be focused on goals for next year as well as bringing up new ideas that can help us improve as a student organization.

Last week we announced that eboard positions were going to be open for anyone to apply if they were interested in taking a leadership role on campus. We received a few emails from TRIO SSS students who were interested and we ended up having a couple of applicants for almost every position. I really enjoyed working with everyone in the organization this year so I decided to re-apply for the vice president position and my peers reelected me. I am excided for next semester being that it will be my last semester here at ASU as an undergraduate but I’m also looking forward to working with a new group of people in TRIO Devils.

The lied to us

A few weeks ago I talked about moving out to a new apartment next semester with a couple of friends unfortunately, it seems like for different reasons we are not going to be able to move in together. Before signing any of the paper work we were told that if for any reason we were not able to move in they would cancel the lease and give us our deposit back so we signed the lease and turned in all of our paperwork. After we found out that half of us were not going to be able to move in we called the apartment complex to try to get our deposit back, they said there was no problem with them giving us the money back but we had to go to the office in person and so we did. Once we got there and explained the situation the manager he told us that in order to get out of the lease we would have to find someone to take over our spot, and on top of that we would still have to pay a $200 fee.

We tried to explain the fact that that was not what was said to us in multiple occasions, before and after signing the lease and he just tried to go around it. We also looked at the contract we signed and nowhere on there does it say that we are not able to cancel the lease prior to move in. I feel like we were lied to from the beginning and the contract we signed is not holding us from cancelling our lease right now since our move in date is not until August. I really don’t know what to do and the most stressful part is that I have to go back to Los Angeles for the summer and I don’t know if I am going to be able to fix this in the next couple of weeks.