Author: Tommy Rivera

I’m halfway there! Well, I’m halfway there of finishing my first year in college at least. I’m still 3.5 years away from my college graduation, so I still have a long way to go. Looking back on my first semester at Trinity, there are a couple of things I would have done differently if I could redo my whole first semester. However, I am extremely proud to be the student I am today: a student who has successfully completed his first semester at Trinity, a student who has endured struggle after struggle and learned from his mistakes, and a student who is ready to make his second semester at Trinity better than his first. College is a whole new world. The transition from high school to college is very difficult. You are entering a new social environment and a new academic setting that takes time to accustom. What can I do to make the transition from high school to college easier and smoother? Take advice and tips from those who have experienced the difficulties of acclimating to the college’s atmosphere. Here is my advice to anyone who is about to start college: Read Andrew Roberts’ The Thinking Student’s Guide to College—specifically his tip #46 which I found to be the most valuable—and consider taking my advice of utilizing all available resources on campus—specifically the counseling center which I found to be the most helpful.

Adolescents never listen or take advice until they experience struggles in a situation where they are forced to take it. I ignored and pushed away all the people who were trying to give me advice about college before I headed to Trinity. “I got this” is what I told them. However, I realized that I didn’t “have it” when I started struggling with both academic and personal problems. I wished I could go back in time and listen closely to the advice I was given from my family, friends, and teachers. Rereading The Thinking Student’s Guide to College by Andrew Roberts made me realized how helpful his tips would have benefited me if I applied them earlier in the semester. In this book, Roberts introduces 75 tips for getting a better education. This book gives excellent advice, and I believe that these tips will help any freshman achieve his or her educational goals for next four year at Trinity College. This prestigious, private, and small liberal arts school has a very challenging and high-quality academic curriculum. Therefore, expect to work hard because nothing will be easy.

Graduating top five from a college prep high school with a G.P.A above a 4.0, I thought I had nothing to worry about, which gave me the confidence of saying, “I got this.” Achieving the grades I wanted in high school was extremely easy. I easily earned straight “A’s” by independently working hard without asking help from my friends and teachers. I thought I could earn straight “A’s” in college by following the same academic routine I had in high school. My obsession with getting straight “A’s” in my first college semester was a mistake because I kept getting paranoid when I get a “B” or a “C” on an assignment or test. I didn’t seek out help when I really needed it because I thought it showed a sign of weakness. However, now I know that asking for help is showing your professors that you care about your education and that you are an extremely hard worker. I learned this precisely by reading tip #46 in Andrew Roberts’ The Thinking Student’s Guide to College

“Show Professors That You Are Working Hard” is what tip #46 states. Andrew Roberts mentions, “By attending class, by completing your assignments on time, by participating in class discussions, and by showing up at your professor’s office hours” shows your professors that you are working hard and care about the class (96). I never went to my professors’ office hours, not even once. Looking back, I wished I would have gone regularly because it would have shown a sign of strength and dedication—and not weakness. If I would have attended my professors’ office hours and participated more in class more, I am positive that I would have earned the straight “A’s” I wanted. However, my obsession with “the perfect grades” soon changed when Jack Dougherty said, “It is not all about the ‘A’ you get in class; it is about what you get out of it.” I stopped being overly obsessed with my grades and started focusing more in class. I am not saying that getting straight “A’s” is impossible, but it will be hard work and reading some of Roberts’ tips will make things easier because you will have a map that will help you have a valuable educational experience. If a freshman wants to have the best educational experience here at Trinity, I recommend reading some of Andrew Roberts’ tips in order to have a successful four years in college.

“Freshmen year of college is always the hardest one” is what everyone says. I say that it all depends on the student. I have met students here at Trinity who came from boarding schools who found the transition from high school to college to be very easy. However, I also came across students who struggle in acclimating to the college life here at Trinity, much like me. In reality, there are going to be students in college who are more academically and personally prepared than others. Even though my classmates learned the material quicker than I did, I still felt I was academically prepared to handle all of the academic challenges that I came across. I never really encountered personal problems back home in Chicago. However, I found myself personally struggling here in Hartford, Connecticut on an emotional level.

Homesickness, depression, and guiltiness are uncontrollable emotions. I never experienced feelings this strong that invoked sadness, discouragement, despair, and hopelessness. I thought that these emotions were temporary, but they got worse the longer I waited to seek help. As days passed, the further away I was from myself. I found myself locking myself in my dorm room; I found myself sleeping more than usual; I found myself not eating; I found myself losing weight; I found myself getting extremely sick; I found myself crying; I found myself having trouble concentrating; I found myself not doing work or studying; I found myself not going to class; I found my grades slipping in all my classes. Most importantly, I found myself losing all the energy and motivation I had when I first arrived in Connecticut.

I was foolish enough not to seek out help when I was at my worst. I am very lucky to have a caring advisor like Stefanie Chambers who took me to the counseling center. At first, I didn’t want to go to counseling because I didn’t want help and because I thought only “crazy” people went to counseling. However, I soon discovered that many Trinity students go to the counseling center to deal with their stress and their other problems. Looking back, I am so happy that I gave counseling a chance because it really did help control my emotional distress. I felt more relieved, and I learned how to control these intense feelings. I wished I would have gone to counseling earlier, so it wouldn’t have drastically affected me physically, academically, socially, and personally. You don’t have to experience the same feelings as I did to go to counseling. Many Trinity students—freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors—have struggles. Dealing with stress is overwhelming and seeking out help is the wisest decision you can make. Going to the counseling center will help you cope with your stress. Most importantly, counseling is free here at Trinity. You have nothing to lose if you try it. Please, take advantage of this resource and use it. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

How is going to counseling going to help me get a better education? The key to a better education is having a healthy body, mind, and soul. I had trouble concentrating, studying, and completing homework assignment when I was dealing with my depression, homesickness, and guiltiness. As a result, my grades slipped. When you first identify a problem, do not be afraid to seek out help. Yes, it will be hard at first to get help when you never received help in the first place. However, do not hesitate to make an appointment at the counseling center. I was absolutely sure I wanted to leave Trinity after this semester when I was coping with my feelings. Nevertheless, counseling made a huge difference in my life, and I am extremely proud of myself that I decided to stay here at Trinity College to receive the best education I deserve. Utilize all resources on campus and seek out help when you are having trouble because only the strongest and dedicated of students will try their greatest to have the best educational experience.

Here is the current information of Trinity College’s Counseling Center:
135 Allen Place (Right on Vernon St. behind the Campus Safety building)
Phone: (860) 297.2415
Fax: (860) 297.2428
Email: Randolph.lee@trincoll.edu
www.trincoll.edu/studentlife/healthwellness/counseling/pages/

Bibliography:
Roberts, Andrew Lawrence. The Thinking Student’s Guide to College. ; 75 Tips for Getting a Better Education. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010. Print

About the Author:
Tommy is a Hispanic male from Chicago, Illinois. Tommy graduated from Noble Street College Prep ’11. He is a student at Trinity College ‘15, and he is a Posse Scholar. Tommy is in Professor Jack Dougherty’s first-year seminar, “Color and Money.”

Trinity College—the community, the work environment, and the home of our faculty members, professors, and students—has been long affected by issues regarding violence, hate, bigotry, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and social class. What is the main issue here at Trinity College? After acclimating to Trinity’s atmosphere for the past three months, my eyes—the perception of a college freshman— see racism as the main issue on campus. In order to abolish acts of racism, the P.R.I.D.E program needs more resources, more publicity, and more non-color students’ participation; moreover, all students at Trinity College need to participate in a P.R.I.D.E type program.

The “Color and Money” freshmen seminar has recently conducted interviews from students here at Trinity College. We interviewed fifteen sophomores—from different racial backgrounds and social classes—from the Class of 2014. At the interviews, we asked these students questions about their perceptions of race and social class at Trinity College. After finding trends and writing a six page paper of race and social class at Trinity College, I have discovered that race plays a much bigger role here on campus than social class. Students here at Trinity are equally conscious of their social class. However, race at Trinity College has a different meaning from its students. Trinity College students have experienced many different forms of racism. Acts of racism in educational institutions are controversial. Racism does not only occur in colleges, but it is also one of the main global issues. However, acts of racism are very common in small, prestigious college environments like Trinity College.

Trinity College has a program for ALL first-year students called P.R.I.D.E (Promoting Respect for Inclusive Diversity in Education). “P.R.I.D.E is a program organized by the office of Multicultural Affairs aimed at supporting students from diverse backgrounds and encouraging interaction among all first-year students at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E is a yearlong initiative, incorporating a mix of programming and outreach from the P.R.I.D.E leaders to build a community that is helpful to all first-year students” (The P.R.I.D.E Pages pamphlet). Faculty members, professors, and students hope that this program would prevent segregation and hope that students of all races would get along. P.R.I.D.E came to existence because social life at Trinity College began to pale. Moreover, issues of gender inequality and power inequality are also what drove to create this program (Spurlock-Evans). The P.R.I.D.E program is not responsible for racial tension here at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E students are not the cause of acts of racisms on campus. Old and recent videos, newspaper, and articles where Caucasian students throw a beer bottle at a student of color, profanity and scribbles all over a student of color’s door, and theme parties where there is exclusion did not happen because of P.R.I.D.E. However, the problem with P.R.I.D.E is that it is not promoted enough to ALL first-year students here at Trinity College. As a result, only the students of color partake in this program without the participation of most Caucasian students due to the lack of publicity. Since the majority of people who participate in P.R.I.D.E are color students, it forces these color students to segregate themselves from Caucasian students before they start their first year at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E starts on the Sunday afternoon before school year begins. There are not that many Caucasian students in P.R.I.D.E which is an issue because these programs will therefore only help students of color create their own group among themselves. Students who participate in P.R.I.D.E tend to only hang out with other students who have also participated in P.R.I.D.E. Since color students are the main ones that participate in this program, then they are only going to create bonds and friendships between themselves—with hardly any Caucasian students in the picture.

In Peter Schmidt’s “Diversity-Program Administrators Fear Challenges to Their Spending” in the Chronicles of Higher Education, it talks about diversity programs at University of Colorado at Boulder. There was a problem with managing expenditures on these programs. The article states that “the state’s flagship university had little idea how much money it spends promoting diversity and poorly manages such expenditures. University officials denied that they were spending any such money wastefully, but two Republican state representatives in Colorado have cited the report in calling for the state auditor to thoroughly examine the university’s diversity expenditures (Schmidt 1). At the University of Colorado at Boulder, money apparently is not used wisely to better create diversity on their campus. Moreover, the money that is not put into good use to better help the campus climate is a waste of resource, and it will not help fight acts of racism in college. Damon A. Williams, the University of Connecticut’s assistant vice provost for multicultural and international affairs, states, “I think many institutions are greatly at risk … Colleges have only in the past few years begun documenting the benefits of diversity … and while they generally can make good arguments that the diversity programs serve a valuable purpose, they have not done enough to track the money spent on such efforts and their results” (Schmidt 1). This connects to issue I brought forth with P.R.I.D.E in the beginning. The lack of publicity is not enough to get EVERYONE involved. This diversity program does serve a valuable purpose in our educational community. However, I feel that in order to prevent acts of racism, everyone—white and color students—needs to be involved in programs like P.R.I.D.E.

In Ben Gose’s “Do Minority Orientations Encourage Segregation?” in the Chronicles of Higher Education, it talks about minority programs in public and private institutions like Yale University, Brown University, Williams College, Pennsylvania State University, Central Michigan University, and Tufts University. The article talks about how many colleges—like the ones mention previously—have separate programs for minority students, and how these programs “have become fairly common, although they differ widely in scope” from college to college (Gose 1). Trinity College also follows these colleges’ program structure. Its P.R.I.D.E program is targeted for minorities in order to help them transition to college. I agree with the article when it states, “Critics wonder if there’s good reason to continue the programs at all. Students and professors on some campuses complain that the programs are highly politicized, and create immediate divisions between white and minority freshmen” (Gose 1). I believe that in order to prevent these divisions between white and color students, everyone needs to be involved in the same program. All Trinity College students need to participate in P.R.I.D.E in order to be equally aware of the importance of race, culture, and diversity.

Money is a great resource that, if used wisely, can better promote P.R.I.D.E in many creative, interesting, and fun ways. Karla Spurlock-Evans, the Dean of Multicultural Affairs, states that “there are gaps in the orientation programs.” If given more resources, those gaps would be filled with more activities. Moreover, I believe that the extra resource would also help better expose P.R.I.D.E to ALL incoming students. Here is my solution: P.R.I.D.E has to have an even stronger structure, if given the extra resource. With the extra resource, P.R.I.D.E will have more activities to occupy all those unfilled gaps, and it will educate the participants even more about diversity and racism. Moreover, all incoming students at Trinity need to participate in a P.R.I.D.E type program to educate themselves and learn about another student’s culture. It will help open and widen white and color students’ perspectives about each other. This will hopefully diminish acts of racism on campus because all students will understand inclusive diversity. This P.R.I.D.E type program should not be voluntary to only those who are interested. I believe that this type of program should be mandatory. It needs to be a general educational requirement because race and diversity are very important essentials to discuss and learn in college, and it will highly benefit our students beyond college after participating in a P.R.I.D.E type program. Also, during orientation week, we need to combine aspects from the P.R.I.D.E program to make orientation more beneficial for all students. Combining diversity aspects during orientation will show all students that racism is a very important topic that needs to be taken seriously. More resources in orientation can help beat fraternities on campus and help get rid of acts of racism. Hopefully in the future, you will see both color and white students’ faces on the P.R.I.D.E Pages pamphlets that show everyone promoting, respecting, and diversifying pride at Trinity College.

Bibliography:
1.Gose, Ben. “Do Minority Orientations Encourage Segregation?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 4, 1998, sec. Students.
2.Office of Multicultural Affairs, The P.R.I.D.E. Pages. Volume 1. Issue 1. Fall 2010.
3.Schmidt, Peter, “Diversity-Program Administrators Fear Challenges to Their Spending,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 2, 2007, Volume 53, Issue 22 edition, sec. Archives : Government & Politics.
4.Spurlock-Evans, Karla, P.R.I.D.E information session, Fall 2011.

About the Author: Tommy Rivera is a Hispanic male from Chicago, Illinois. He is a Posse Scholar who will graduate in 2015. He is in the first-year seminar, “Color and Money” at Trinity College.

Revised Proposal:
Trinity College—the community, the work environment, and the home of our faculty members, Professors, and students—has been long affected by issues regarding violence, hate, bigotry, racism, sexism, sexual abuse, sexual orientation, and social class. What is the main issue here at Trinity? After acclimating to Trinity’s atmosphere for the past three months, my eyes—the perception of a college freshman— see racism as the main issue on campus.
The “Color and Money” freshmen seminar has recently conducted interviews from students here at Trinity College. We interviewed fifteen sophomores—from different racial backgrounds and social classes—from the Class of 2014. At the interviews, we asked these students questions about their perceptions of race and social class at Trinity College. After finding trends and writing a six page paper of race and social class at Trinity College, I have discovered that race plays a much bigger role here on campus than social class. Students here at Trinity are equally conscious of their social class. However, race at Trinity College has a different meaning from its students. Trinity College students have experienced many different forms of racism. Acts of racism in educational institutions are controversial. Racism does not only occur in colleges, but it is also one of the main global issues. However, acts of racism are very common in small, prestigious college environments like Trinity College.
Trinity College has a program for ALL first-year students called P.R.I.D.E (Promoting Respect for Inclusive Diversity in Education). “P.R.I.D.E is a program organized by the office of Multicultural Affairs aimed at supporting students from diverse backgrounds and encouraging interaction among all first-year students at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E is a yearlong initiative, incorporating a mix of programming and outreach from the P.R.I.D.E leaders to build a community that is helpful to all first-year students” (The P.R.I.D.E Pages pamphlet). Faculty members, professors, and students hope that this program would prevent segregation and hope that students of all races would get along. P.R.I.D.E came to existence because social life at Trinity College began to pale. Moreover, issues of gender inequality and power inequality are also what drove to create this program (Spurlock-Evans). The P.R.I.D.E program is not responsible for racial tension here at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E students are not cause of acts of racisms on campus. Old and recent videos, newspaper, and articles where privilege students throw a beer bottle at a student of color, profanity and scribbles all over a student of color’s door, theme parties where there is exclusion did not happen because of P.R.I.D.E. However, the problem with P.R.I.D.E is that it is not promoted enough to ALL first-year students here at Trinity College. As a result, only the students of color partake in this program without the participation of most white students due to the lack of publicity. Since the majority of students in P.R.I.D.E are non-whites, it forces these non-white students to segregate themselves from white students before they start their first year at Trinity College. P.R.I.D.E starts on the Sunday afternoon before school year begins. There are not that many white students in P.R.I.D.E which is an issue because these programs will therefore only help students of color create their own group among themselves. Students who participate in P.R.I.D.E tend to only hang out with other students who have also participated in P.R.I.D.E. Since color students are the main ones that participate in this program, then they are only going to great bonds and friendships between themselves—with hardly any white students in the picture.
In Peter Schmidt’s “Diversity-Program Administrators Fear Challenges to Their Spending” in the Chronicles of Higher Education, it talks about diversity programs at University of Colorado at Boulder. There was a problem with managing expenditures on these programs. The article states that “the state’s flagship university had little idea how much money it spends promoting diversity and poorly manages such expenditures. University officials denied that they were spending any such money wastefully, but two Republican state representatives in Colorado have cited the report in calling for the state auditor to thoroughly examine the university’s diversity expenditures (Schmidt 1). At the University of Colorado at Boulder, money apparently is not used wisely to better create diversity on their campus. Moreover, the money that is not put into good use to better help the campus climate is a waste of resource, and it will not help fight acts of racism in college. Damon A. Williams, the University of Connecticut’s assistant vice provost for multicultural and international affairs, states, “I think many institutions are greatly at risk … Colleges have only in the past few years begun documenting the benefits of diversity … and while they generally can make good arguments that the diversity programs serve a valuable purpose, they have not done enough to track the money spent on such efforts and their results” (Schmidt 1). This connects to issue I brought forth with P.R.I.D.E in the beginning. The lack of publicity is not enough to get EVERYONE involved. This diversity program does serve a valuable purpose in our educational community. However, I feel that in order to prevent acts of racism, everyone—white and color students—should be involved in programs like P.R.I.D.E.
Money is a great resource that, if used wisely, can better promote P.R.I.D.E in many creative, interesting, and fun ways. Karla Spurlock-Evans, the Dean of Multicultural Affairs, states that “there are gaps in the orientation programs.” If given more resources, those gaps would be filled with more activities. Moreover, I believe that the extra resource would also help better expose P.R.I.D.E to all incoming students. Here is my solution: P.R.I.D.E has to have a different structure if given the extra resource. Moreover, every incoming student at Trinity needs to participate in a P.R.I.D.E type program to educate themselves and learn about another student’s culture. It will help open and widen white and color students’ perspectives about each other. This will hopefully diminish acts of racism on campus because all students will understand inclusive diversity. Also, during orientation week, we need to combine aspects from the P.R.I.D.E program to make orientation more beneficial for all students. More resources in orientation can help beat fraternities on campus and help get rid of acts of racism. Hopefully in the future, you will see both color and white students’ faces on the P.R.I.D.E Pages pamphlets that shows everyone promoting, respecting, an diversifying pride at Trinity College.
Bibliography:
1. Schmidt, Peter, “Diversity-Program Administrators Fear Challenges to Their Spending,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 2, 2007, Volume 53, Issue 22 edition, sec. Archives : Government & Politics.
2. Spurlock-Evans, Karla, P.R.I.D.E information session, fall 2011.

First Proposal:
Trinity College—the community of our faculty members, the school of our Professors, and the home of our students—has been long affected by issues regarding racism, sexism, violence, sexual abuse, and sexual orientation. However, racism has to be the main key problem here at Trinity College. The “Color and Money” freshmen seminar has recently conducted interviews from students here at this college. We interviewed fifteen sophomores—from different racial backgrounds and social classes—from the Class of 2014. At the interviews, we asked these students questions about their perceptions of race and social class at Trinity College. After finding trends and writing a six page paper of race and social class at Trinity College, I have discovered that race plays a much bigger role here at campus than social class. Students here at Trinity are equally conscious of their social class. However, race is whole different story.
Trinity College has a special program for incoming international students called PRIDE (insert full meaning of acronym later). Students and faculty members thought that this program would be better help their non-white students get accustomed to Trinity College where the majority population is white. Here’s the problem: PRIDE forces these non-white students to segregate themselves from white students before they come to campus. PRIDE is an early program right before college starts. PRIDE has helped these international students create their own group among themselves. Students who participate in PRIDE tend to only hang out with other students who have also participated in PRIDE. Some students do not even bother getting out of their comfort zone and start meeting other people who didn’t participate in this program.
Here’s my solution: PRIDE has to have a whole different structure. Half of the PRIDE program has to be white and the other half has to be non-white. We need to pair each of them, so they can get comfortable getting to know someone else’s culture. I really don’t know what really happens in PRIDE, but perhaps changing activities and the agenda around to get more international students be comfortable approaching people they do not know from the people they already know in PRIDE. Also, during orientation week, we can find other ways to better communicate these different type of students before segregation started becoming apparent and start taking place in their college lives. I want to get more information of PRIDE. Their current structure, the amount of people who take part of it, the kind of people who take part of it, what type of discussions are disscused, and such.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjBRjzE7iN16dGpSbS1sNGJCQkxDSGlHby1hbnpaMkE&hl=en_US

[Note to Tommy: I followed the link above to a sheet titled “Tommy’s ratings” but I did not see your individual ratings anywhere in that spreadsheet. If you stored them somewhere else, please contact me. -Jack D]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjBRjzE7iN16dEhEekt4Tndsc3RpN1NQQXVZaVVNMHc&hl=en_US

Our system focuses heavily on the Dean’s suggestions in the correspondence. As a result, Caitlin Quinn, who has four alumni connections and a strong transcript, was one of the first people we automatically recommended for admission. In an effort to progress in the selection process, applicants who were recommended to be put on the waitlist during class (seen in red) were not taken into consideration in our ranking process. We evaluated the remaining nine applicants based on their GPAs and their SAT I combined scores in comparison with national averages for their races and their states—which we found from online from 2010 (sources listed below). As expected, many of these students exceeded these averages, so we calculated which of these students had exceeded both of these averages the most. 30% of applicants who are admitted actually enroll, so the students who remain in green remain on a newly-created waitlist that is ordered by GPA, while the three strongest of the nine with which we began are shown in pink. In addition to ranking the highest in regards to these factors, both Angelica Parker and Paula Nunes satisfy the Dean’s request for accepting diverse students as well as the requests of the athletic department.

Sources:
Benefield, Nathan. “2010 SAT Scores by State.” Commonwealth Foundation. 16 Sept. 2010. Web. 11 Sept. 2011. .

Marklein, Mary Beth. “Average SAT Scores Fluctuate Slightly within Class of 2010 – USATODAY.com.” USA Today. 14 Sept. 2010. Web. 11 Sept. 2011. .

Mr. Benjamin D. Rosen is an Advanced Placement scholar who has challenged himself academically. Rosen scored 4’s on four AP exams. His intended major is creative writing. He is a strong student when it comes to English and Literature. However, he has a minor difficulty in Math. Rosen received a “C” his freshmen year in Honors Algebra 3, 4 and a “D” his sophomore year in Honors Pre-Calc 1, 2. His teachers from his letter of recommendations state that he is a student who follows his passion and engages in diversity. He has a good level of responsibility because he is the Editor-in-Chief of his school newspaper and directs the organization. Moreover, he also has a huge involvement in theater where he acts, writes, and edits plays. Rosen has a 3.45 GPA. The GPA requirement is a B+ average. Interviews are not required but highly encouraged. His father, who is a professor at Trinity, scheduled his son for an interview on Sep. 15. However, Rosen did not attend. Professor Rosen scheduled yet another interview appointment, and Rosen, once again, did not attend because it interfered with his theater schedule. Rosen clearly has not shown sincere interest in Trinity. Moreover, there are no special awards listed that Rosen has received. Therefore, he is chosen to be on the waiting list.