Students coming back from a long period off school or fresh from high school full of questions and concerns gathered at Harry West Gym on Nov. 20 for the 10th Student Success Conference, presented by the First Year Experience Program at San Diego City College.
FYE is a program designed to help all the new students that are coming to City College by helping them set up and sign up for the classes they are going to need for the next semester.
It gives support and guidance to students who wants to pursue their goals and graduate with a college degree, transfer to a four-year university or for personal purposes such as getting knowledge in general aspects.
Gustavo Casas, a student member of FYE and a first-semester student at City College was part of the conference.
“Being part of FYE has helped me a lot; it gave me privileges on early priority class registration. It helped me identify my goals as a new student,” Casas said. “I got help from counselors and peer mentors and they guided me in this new journey of my life.”
The event started off with students signing in at the gym and getting a name tag to make it less awkward to interact with other students.
A big welcome from the FYE peer members was made for all the new students sharing personal experiences and their success through FYE.
The counselors also introduced themselves and gave a brief introduction about the programs City College offers to all students during their stay at the campus. DSPS (Disabled Students & Program Services), Mental Health and Health Services, Financial Aid, EOPS (Extended Opportunity Programs and Services) CARE and CalWORKs were some of the programs mentioned to the new students.
After the orientation was done, the schedule was given with all the activities and workshops happening during the day and everyone moved from the gym to the main campus.
A resources fair was held at AH plaza. There were tables; each one with different programs like cosmetology, photography and radio and television.
Different departments were giving away flyers and sharing information about the requisites and benefits of each program like nursing and MESA (Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement) program.
Meanwhile students gather at the plaza between the BT and AH building eating snacks while every FYE peer member started an educational plan session to guide the students on what classes to take next semester according to their assessment scores in English and math.
FYE does a monthly meeting with students to help them navigate on this new journey and Francisco Peralta is one of the peer mentors who help students out step by step.
“I was a FYE student when I first started and it helped a lot. When I came back to school I was really rusty; I was out of school for eight years and my math was terrible and english and writing was awful. So that’s one of the main reasons I wanted to come back as a peer mentor, to help everyone who was in my situation.” Peralta said.
Even though FYE is a yearlong program, there is also the Extended Year Experience for students who would like to continue being mentor and have extra help in order to transfer and help them in whether they need.
