Jescel Flores

Informative OSSA Meeting regarding the transferring process! Mr. Deas really gave useful information and tips for students who are considering on transferring to a 4-year institution. I learned that not all courses can be transferable so in order to guarantee that all of your courses will transfer so it's important to contact the office of transfer services to see if your on the right track. You would want to identify the college you want to attend, connect with the office of transfer services, map out your courses at PGCC, identify transfer applications, schedule an appointment with a transfer advisor from your chosen 4-year institution, and stay in communication with the office of transfer services at all times when you need help!

The movie that we watched for movie night was really unexpected! We watched the movie "Mekko" and I thought the movie was going to be a documentary movie until the end which completely took me by surprise since the movie is actually a thriller. I would love to see more indigenous cinema because movies, such as Mekko, brings an interesting look among the Native American community in the United States.

Very big round of applause for the speaker of this year's Scholarship Night! I learned more about the in-depth details of code-switching and how it affects people of color. After scholarship night, I noticed I have been code-switching in different places to fit in such as the workplace and in school. I realized now that it's important to express yourself freely with whatever language you feel is comfortable for you and not adhere to standards. Code-switching truly affects our personalities and it's important not to suppress your true language.

It was really nice having the staff from the Financial Empowerment Center to join the OSSA Meeting! Mr. Carelock provided us useful advice on how to keep our financial stability in check. He went over the program variety that was available in the financial empowerment center such as the money mindfulness meditation and breakthrough financial storytelling. Mr. Carelock also went over how we should start saving for our retirement and for our overall future. It is better to start young when saving because the older and later you start saving, the larger amount of money you have to save would get larger. He also went over key findings for college students and how we can be successful in student finances.

I enjoyed the FAM Music Night! The hosts are very sweet and they let us know at the beginning of the session that they are open to requests. It was fun hanging out with other students while listening to different genres of music. I was really happy to know that some students had similar taste in music as I did and we listened to a little bit of it during the session. I would be interested in joining another event like this!

Attending the financial therapy session was very needed, especially emerging into adulthood when financial concepts are often foreign to us. During this session, I learned more about the mistakes I'm making when it comes to money-making decisions. I learned that it's important not to trust pawnshops, end subscriptions you are not using, avoid "free checks", and most importantly prioritizing tax paperwork. It's important to save money as much as possible and never use it on unnecessary things.