Home for winter break, CSO’s Executive Director Matt Rubinoff came down to San Diego to meet me. He brought his new Flip Video. Check it out!

The first semester definitely had many lessons to learn. One thing I didn’t mention in my previous blogs is that I was pledging for Phi Iota Alpha, a Latino fraternity that focuses on uplifting the Latino community and bringing together the different people of Latin America. I feel strongly about my fraternity’s goals and that is why I chose to pledge my first semester.

For the next semester, I am definitely going to be even more involved with the Latino community on campus and try to reach out to the Latino students in the Boston area who are trying to make it to college. Now that I am a member of Phi Iota Alpha and involved with other Latino groups on campus, I am going to try to use my membership as a tool to reach out to the students who come from similar backgrounds as me.

Pledging for a fraternity and remaining involved in campus activities was very challenging but I definitely have learned how to manage my time in a way that I never thought possible. It was tough but my family back home and friends at school definitely gave me their support and with that I was able to be successful my first semester.

I am currently in Washington State right now as a guest speaker for a program called LCP, Latino College Prep. I shared my experiences as a first-generation American and first-generation college student and spoke about the importance of going to college and breaking the cycle. The students that I met in Everett, WA have definitely motivated me to continue reaching out to students and to continue working as hard as I can to succeed in college.

Remember, you need to go to college and be role models for all those who believe they can’t go to college because no one else in their family has.

As I’ve spoken with many of my peers, they’ve all said that the first semester was a definite challenge. Many of my new found friends will be returning to Dillard University while others won’t. One things for sure, we’ve all realized the Do’s and the Don’ts of college life. Making the decision to attend a university is a commitment, and one must be willing to go through the fire, one must be geared to weather the storm. As I enter my second semester at Dillard University, I do so with a cleansed mind and iron heart. My first semester was a tough one, but I’m definitely ready to turn the page. It is not healthy to live in the past, but we all should learn from our mistakes.

Being a first-generation college student, it is imperative that I seek guidance, branch out to grasp what I need to succeed in my environment. I’ve realized that it is true that everyone needs someone in their corner. So this semester one of my “Golden Rules” is to always seek assistance when I‘m unsure.

Another one of my golden rules is to learn to use time management. As students we have multiple things to balance in our lives, such as partying, employment, friends, romance, family, and most importantly education. Time management can make you or break you. Having good time management skills will definitely benefit you in the long run.

There are many things I know I must improve in order to be successful. I am on a mission this semester and there won’t be anything capable of detouring me.

Well, 1/8 of my college experience and (knock on wood) I’m very happy with where I’m at.  In my last post, I discussed how it took a few people to go out of their way and really become friends with me.  These are some great kids, and I have surely managed to have a great time at Oxy up until now.   As one of my friends and I were reflecting on the past semester though, we came to the conclusion we really didn’t DO as much in L.A. as we thought we would.  Occidental makes a very good case that the whole of Los Angeles is an integral part of the experience.  As my friend and I discussed, though, we realized that the times we had attempted to leave campus by ourselves (neither of us have a car) using the public transportation, that you can be very lucky or very unlucky in terms of how much you wait.  As a matter of fact, a few of us decided we wanted to see Hollywood on a Saturday night.  Thirty minutes on the bus and we were standing wide eyed on the corner of Hollywood and Vine in the shadow of that building that looks like a stack of records.   Later on though, we waited almost 2 hours for a return bus with maybe 15 Angelenos and didn’t return to the dorm until around 3:00.  Not to mention all the arrests we witnessed in our short stroll along the Boulevard, it was a pretty nerve-racking experience.

This semester though I really do plan to visit some of Los Angeles’s most important cultural attractions, museums, and maybe the beach a couple of times.   It truly appears to be a great city, but I think it might be wise for us to much better understand the transit system.  Very few of my peers have cars on campus, and of the few that do, a minority are from out of town and willing to “explore” the city.  I’m sure that this will be easy to overcome though.  My only fear is that increasing my focus on seeing the sights will detract from my studies. My class lineup this semester seems to be far too interesting for that though. (Michelangelo, Intro to Urban & Environmental policy, The Russian Experience, and Spanish) all cater to very specific interests of mine.

Alas though it will likely be a struggle against the ease of hedonistic pursuits to again truly learn this semester, but there is no reason why overcoming such distractions shouldn’t be easy.

I was going to keep some of the more major things I’ve been doing at college under wraps, but in light of a series of events that have occured back home I feel the need to stop being so abstract and “wise man” like and show maybe proof that the sky’s the limit regardless of “this, that, and the third”. Hopefully I don’t sound like I’m gloating…but I am. Just kidding, hah.

So maybe we should kick it off with my high school year.

January 1st passed, just like you guys now, all my applications are done and I’m feeling overly relieved. Between my schools it was a whole bunch of business schools: Washington & Lee, Uni. of Virginia, Uni. of Richmond, and Babson. And then there was the Rhode Island School of Design. I know!! Complete 180 from all of the schools I’ve applied too, but that was my sort of crazy, not-secure school that I would go to if I decided to pursue my more creative dreams.

Well the rest is history as they say, but it’s actually more like a long story I’m going to explain in my blog.

I never went to RISD as you know, hah, I was too scared to follow that route, but to serve as a medium I went to Babson, which I thought would be nice because Boston is right there and a big city means big opportunities. Oh good lord I forget to mention that at that time and currently still, I was/am passionate [is that too corny of a word to use?] industrial design/product design. Industrial design is basically the creation of new products. Some of your favorite companies have a huge emphasis on design: Apple, BMW, Fender, etc. You get the gist.

Right anyway, so I’m all gung-ho about design so I email the professor, Sebastian Fixson, in charge of this really cool class at Babson called Product Design & Development. So I email him once I decided on going to Babson. We remained in correspondence all throughout the summer, and after the first week of college I email him again and we set up a time to just talk about everything. So I meet him and I’m trying to exude my passion as much as possible, and let me remind you meeting him was a HUGE thing for me – I had already planned on sitting in on his PDD class. Anyways we talk about everything and he offers me a seat in the course!!! This just put a smile upon my face because even though I wouldn’t get credit I would learn something, which I did, and I also created a few important relationships. Right also this course was a 3 school joint program with Babson College for business, Olin College for engineering, and the Rhode Island School of Design – HOW COOL THAT EVERYTHING COMES BACK 360 [actually I knew about the class before I came].

Check out more from the class here

Anyways I sit in on the class and [this part always makes me laugh] it’s full of 3rd years & 4years and I introduced myself and I said I was a 1st year at Babson and I picked business over RISD and they all laughed at me. Woot! So I sit in on other classes and I even got to go to RISD, which is absolutely beautiful by the way, and I met a man named Tim Prestero of Design That Matters. A quick aside, DTM is a non-profit that produces products that are actually of use to people in 3rd world countries such as medicial devices.

Tim had this really interesting project where students would be making a phototherapy unit to help fight hyperbilirubinemia/jaundice in newborns [you can find out more here and click around that is only one type of HB]. If there are any parents, you know how this works. The jaundiced baby/baby with hyperbilirubinemia is placed under a blue light [yes blue light is all it takes] and in a few days the problem is gone. Well this project was of particular interest to me because it was to be made in Vietnam and first implemented in Vietnam, my home country. As you know, Vietnam is not so rich, and the best phototherapy units, such as the neoBlue, cost up to $10,000 USD. Yeah that’s not working for a third world country.

I approached Tim and we exchanged information and I email him a few days later seeing how I could help even though I was a first year. He then directed to the Babson MBA graduate students who were working on this. I emailed them, and then I met Shilpi Gupta, Molly McDonald, Lara Clemenzi, Rahul Bhansali, & Prakash Bhatia the students on the project. We met over the course of the semester and worked on a design that would fit the culture [even my mom helped!]. Well long story short, the final product matched the best phototherapy unit on the market, the neoBlue, on output and the product lasts, about, 10,000 hours. And guess what? The creation of the product only takes $400 USD. Labour expenses will raise the cost of the unit once it starts becoming manufactured in Vietnam, HOWEVER, everything should remain will under $1000 USD. Also, by the time the product was in the design fair at Babson, there were already 300 orders for it.

Here are photos:

This is Praks with our baby. And our finished design.

I am completely honored to have worked with these people, they are nothing short of amazing. Something major come from practically nothing. Even if you’ve got a million to one shot, you’ve still got a shot.

“The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire” – Ferdinand Foch,
Duylam

Wow!  Like everyone else has said, this semester has absolutely flown by.    I remember during the first few weeks of school wondering whether or not I was going to handle the social situation of all these kids that I had very little in common with.  I did miss my family, my friends, and my comfort back home for the entire semester, but that feeling was especially strong in the first few weeks.  My peers at Oxy had all been extremely friendly, and almost without exception, they have proven to be caring, compassionate, and outgoing people.    Now, I understand that people at any college are probably more friendly than the average population, however it took a while for me to come around the realization that this is how ALL people CAN BE. What’s more, I had always imagined that the historic class struggle would keep me from ever really penetrating their ranks.

With this realization it was very easy for me to make friends.  I’ve never been, by any means, a socially estranged person, but I think I can finally understand how some might sense an alienation and let it confine them.  For me, it was that a few people went out of there way to be kind to me that this became possible.  They were my gateway to a larger population at the school.   While still existent, those feelings of loneliness and distance from familiarity were significantly downplayed.  I am appreciative then for my new friends who have made being away a genuinely great experience and who have taken the pain out of it.  I genuinely believe that without them I probably would have performed much worse this semester (grades were 3 A’s and a B — the B was in a math class).  I guess what I’m saying is that, especially at a residential college, social interactions are a part of the equation. I would caution all people though to watch the company you keep because new friends might be detrimental to your success, something thus far I have tried to avoid.

“When life gives you lemons, make orange juice!”
A close friend of my mind said this to me freshman year of high school. Now we are freshmen at Dillard University and the phrase has stuck with me over time. It means that anything is possible, there are not many things in life that are truly written in stone. 

When life puts hurdles in your way, do you stand in front them and cry? No. Here’s what you should do,  lace up your Nike’s, make sure their real, real  tight, take a deep breath and leap over your struggles with all your courage and energy. 

I’ve received my grades for the first semester and they weren’t what I had hoped for. Sooo what! I have no one to blame but myself. Does this mean that I lay down and die? Does this mean that I quit, give up? No, this means that I press on, push harder and harder until I earn the grades that I want.

Right now,  I’m at a C average which is unacceptable. I won’t “cry over spilled milk” though, meaning I won’t wallow in self pity. I know what I did wrong last semester and I know what I have to do to improve my situation. It’s up to me to rectify my mistakes.

I made it to Dillard University using determination and intelligence and I will graduate from Dillard University using the same qualities. One should never forget their struggles so I’ll cross The Avenue of the Oaks to receive my diploma with a smile on my face and strength etched in my heart.

Class of 2009…Class of 2013…Class of 2015…

After you say them enough, they all begin to roll off the tongue.  While these years may mean little to you, for me, they represent graduation years—high school, undergrad, Master’s…the list could continue for quite a while.  The years also symbolize change, something present in everyone’s life on the eve of a new year, particularly for current seniors.

My advice:

BE OPEN

BE PREPARED

BE EXCITED

Open to the many new experiences headed your way, some of which you may have never considered participating in.

Prepared for all that has yet to come and for the events you have yet to finish.  Before the college journey begins…finals, admission decisions, prom… (GRADUATION!)… all remain.

Excited because here you finally are—on the brink of a novel environment—closing the chapter of elementary, middle & high school…progressing to another stage of your life.

Be all of these things and ultimately, be ready for change.

So here I am, back in Arkansas for Christmas break.  I exchanged a 78^o climate for 37^o weather.  I’m back at my job at Steinmart, greeting customers and bagging purchases.  Once again, surrounded by family and familiar friends. But now it’s different.  I’m different.  Still myself but with subtle adjustments.  In fact, I realized that college may be a guide in becoming more “me”.

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly…”

–Henri Bergson

So, as you finish up senior year in the next few months and Fall 2010 becomes more of a present reality, keep who you are in mind, but also be willing to change…to mature…to progress…

First off, I hope everyone had a great holiday.

Now that it is time for school again, it means it is time for me to get back to work. Last semester I really didn’t know what to expect, so I treated it like it was still high school. That was a bad move and by the time I realized that it wasn’t going to work that way it was too late for me to change my ways.

So as a new semester begins, it is a whole new beginning for me. I switched my major to Sociology with a minor in Psychology (and History) and I have pledged to get serious about my studies.

Being the first in my family to attend college is very important to me. I want to be able to succeed.

Do I plan on destroying my social life? Not at all. I plan on learning something I have never had before… Time Management.

Although it is cliché, I know I can do anything I set my mind to. I have survived 2 days of the new semester and so far, all is well. I hope this is one New Year’s Resolution that I can keep.

Now as a message to my readers.. I want you to (if you haven’t already done so) think of the year ahead. What is in store for you? Are you prepared for it? If not what can you do to make yourself ready? This new year will be coming at us full speed and many challenges are ahead. Make sure you are ready. If you are, then you will conquer all.