A Letter To All the First Year Students:
Dear Future FYE Pathways/College 1 Student,
Being in Pathways is a lot of fun in my first semester at PCC. You will be required to take College 1 and you would think that you won’t need it or it’s a waste of your time, but really it’s not. When I entered Pathways, I thought I would never have any friends or wondering if the classmates are not going to like me, but I made lots of friends and all the classmates and even the College One professor were kind and supportive in the class. You will get to read this book called “Madonnas of Echo Park” by Brando Skyhorse, and yes it is required to read in College 1. There were two quotes from the story that was inspiring which were, “Faith is a luxury for those who are able to ignore what the rest of us must see every day. Pessimism, distrust, and irony are the holy trinity of my religion; irony in particular” and “There is no elegy for those who have been dispossessed of their anger--what remains is a future carved out of banality instead of blood.” Each quote represent that violence is the cure to end the misery in someone’s life as till this day, many gangs and immigrations are not living up the American Dream they wish to have when they moved to Los Angeles. You will be also required to do RRJs which means Reading Response Journal after reading each chapter in the novel. You have to do 5 paragraphs, which can be short or long either way you like, and explain who are the characters, what is it about, can this be related to the outside world, what is the moral message to the readers, and what part impacted you the most in the novel. Doesn’t sound fun huh? Well, you’re wrong! Besides the RRJS, The excited experience in College 1 is that you get to create a poster that represent the novel and get to meet speakers like Brando Skyhorse, who actually came to campus! While working on the poster, I learned teamwork and communication with my teammates who I was so happy to be partnered up with for this project. We would use Skype as a communication to discuss our plans on the poster, sources, quotes, graphs, and I was in charge with the illustration, in the poster. There was even a contest in the event of presenting to poster. We didn’t win the contest, but we were honestly proud of ourselves that we accomplished this together and created a bond of teamwork and friendship throughout the progress of the poster. The helpful tip in finding a source for a article you will be looking to find for any of your classes would be to check for the current date if this article is published currently and not from 10 years ago, check for error grammars in the article, check if there is a contact or communication to have connection with the author, check if the source is useful to the topic you are focus on doing and not something someone made up, and check if the source is a scholar journal article instead of a newspaper. It is amazing that I am now finishing the first semester and I’m grateful for the help, tutor, and support from both my Coach and Professor for getting me into the path of being successful for my second semester. I made lots of friends and learned so much in my classes as well in College 1. I would like to leave something for you to remember when entering Pathways/College 1 from my experience. You will face ups and downs along the way, but always remember that Pathways and College 1 are always there for helpful support to get you in the right direction of surviving your first year in college as well as to become comfortable adapt to the community college you are about to enter, and that is Pasadena City College. Good Luck and Remember To Have Fun in Pathways/College 1~!
From,
Amber Chaudhry Acevedo
Being in Pathways is a lot of fun in my first semester at PCC. You will be required to take College 1 and you would think that you won’t need it or it’s a waste of your time, but really it’s not. When I entered Pathways, I thought I would never have any friends or wondering if the classmates are not going to like me, but I made lots of friends and all the classmates and even the College One professor were kind and supportive in the class. You will get to read this book called “Madonnas of Echo Park” by Brando Skyhorse, and yes it is required to read in College 1. There were two quotes from the story that was inspiring which were, “Faith is a luxury for those who are able to ignore what the rest of us must see every day. Pessimism, distrust, and irony are the holy trinity of my religion; irony in particular” and “There is no elegy for those who have been dispossessed of their anger--what remains is a future carved out of banality instead of blood.” Each quote represent that violence is the cure to end the misery in someone’s life as till this day, many gangs and immigrations are not living up the American Dream they wish to have when they moved to Los Angeles. You will be also required to do RRJs which means Reading Response Journal after reading each chapter in the novel. You have to do 5 paragraphs, which can be short or long either way you like, and explain who are the characters, what is it about, can this be related to the outside world, what is the moral message to the readers, and what part impacted you the most in the novel. Doesn’t sound fun huh? Well, you’re wrong! Besides the RRJS, The excited experience in College 1 is that you get to create a poster that represent the novel and get to meet speakers like Brando Skyhorse, who actually came to campus! While working on the poster, I learned teamwork and communication with my teammates who I was so happy to be partnered up with for this project. We would use Skype as a communication to discuss our plans on the poster, sources, quotes, graphs, and I was in charge with the illustration, in the poster. There was even a contest in the event of presenting to poster. We didn’t win the contest, but we were honestly proud of ourselves that we accomplished this together and created a bond of teamwork and friendship throughout the progress of the poster. The helpful tip in finding a source for a article you will be looking to find for any of your classes would be to check for the current date if this article is published currently and not from 10 years ago, check for error grammars in the article, check if there is a contact or communication to have connection with the author, check if the source is useful to the topic you are focus on doing and not something someone made up, and check if the source is a scholar journal article instead of a newspaper. It is amazing that I am now finishing the first semester and I’m grateful for the help, tutor, and support from both my Coach and Professor for getting me into the path of being successful for my second semester. I made lots of friends and learned so much in my classes as well in College 1. I would like to leave something for you to remember when entering Pathways/College 1 from my experience. You will face ups and downs along the way, but always remember that Pathways and College 1 are always there for helpful support to get you in the right direction of surviving your first year in college as well as to become comfortable adapt to the community college you are about to enter, and that is Pasadena City College. Good Luck and Remember To Have Fun in Pathways/College 1~!
From,
Amber Chaudhry Acevedo