By Kevin Camargo
The Third Annual Student Success Conference offered informational workshops to students at the South Gate campus on Saturday.
“The intent is to provide our students at the South Gate campus with information that is helping them transfer,” Maria Quintero, Assistant Professor of Political Science said.
The event was hosted by the Student Success Conference Committee and Student Success Collective Club.
Quintero said the committee — made up of South Gate campus’ faculty and staff – saw a need for to provide other services to students that the main campus had and the South Gate campus did not.
“It’s great that ELAC has conferences for students all the time (and) lots of activity on the (main campus), but a lot of times we don’t have anything here locally,” Dean Evelyn Escatiola said.
Escatiola said they want to educate and inform students about their resources and options, as she knows that students go to East Los Angeles College because they want to continue education and not to waste their time.
Workshops included, but were not limited to, Career and Job Services Counselor Genevieve Ayala’s “Congratulations you got accepted! So what’s next?” and Extended Opportunities Programs and Services Counselor Andres Gonzalez’s “Ready to Transfer? Find out How.”
One of the most attended workshop was “College Survival Skills,” led by Assistant Professor of History Dr. Leonard Melchor and Student Health Center counselor Irma Marmolejo.
“As we are getting closer to finals, there is definitely a lot more stress about getting closer to the semester,” Quintero said.
“We asked her (Marmolejo) if she can provide tips to students on how to release stress and what they can do to ensure that they’re not going to get overwhelmed with the ending of the semester,” she said.
Quintero said that this year they added a leadership workshop that was led by students.
“The three members of that particular workshop were Alexis Diaz, Elmer Ortega and Eduardo Armenta,” Quintero said.
“We wanted to tell the students the importance of them being involved in student leadership, not only academically but also to consider (it when) transferring.”
The conference also offered a free bag with donated pens and notebooks, as well as lunch provided by the Student Success Equity Funds.
At the end of the conference, gift cards – donated by faculty, staff and departments – were raffled.
Escatiola said that she wants students to build their self-agency to take their own initiative, and use the information to help make better choices.
“I hope that they walked away with more information on how they can be better students (and) how can they actually use the information to help them prepare for their academic goal,” Quintero said.
“Hopefully (it) was informative and they had fun in the process.”