Organization and Balance are the prefect combination!

If you have been reading my previous posts, probably you understood that I am a really busy person this semester! At the beginning of this school year, I promised myself that I would have had to organize myself in order to balance not only school classes, homework and extracurricular activities, but also all the wonderful other things that come along with life. What about having a social life, hobbies, and a healthy lifestyle? Well.. at first I didn’t even know how I would have managed to do everything. However, if I take a glance to my life right now, I guess I am doing pretty good, since I haven’t left behind anything yet, and I am keeping up with everything! In my opinion, I have to be really thankful that I am really organized and I can balance everything through adequate planning. 

College life is one of the greatest environments to learn to be organized and to deal for the first time with the real life challenges. In fact, high school is just a small introduction to life, where professors have the job to slowly lead you to become a responsible student, and they help you to figure out a little better what you want from your life. However, nobody ever tells you that in the adults life there is no mentor anymore: everything is up to YOU. Do you want to learn to deal with life? Go to college!!! In fact, college is the first environment in which we become “ life jugglers”… Yes, unluckily life is not a straightforward and linear path, but it is rather an obstacle course that without the right training will make you stumble without pity. Balance + Planning will be the key to solve every problem.

I looooove post-its!!!

Here I will tell you a little bit about how I manage time at my best. First of all, in order to organize my weeks I always use the really cool SBCC Student Handbook and Planner. This is an essential tool for success. In fact, every Friday morning I spend 10 minutes to write down all the assignments of the upcoming week in order to have a clear prospect of the future classwork I will have to get done. Besides, the Student Planner the calendar is another essential tool! I always wondered why my mom and dad always had a calendar… well, now I definitely know that it is impossible to remember every commitment just relying on our memory. 

Everything that doesn’t concern school work such as club meetings, internships, tutoring, personal trainer at thegym and other extracurricular activities need to be written down somewhere! I love my iPhone calendar :) Lastly, post-its!!!! In fact, post-its are not only cute and colorful but they are really useful to remember the daily tasks! I always have a post-it with a list of all the commitments of the day! Ok.. I’ll admit it.. I mainly use post-its just because I LOVE erasing what I get done. it just gives me a feeling of satisfaction, and it makes me feel better. Every time I look at my post-it at night at it has every task crossed over I feel like I accomplished my daily mission!! Yahoo!!

I hope you’ll use my “organization+balance” tips for a more successful college (and adult) life!!!

All new things… I’m on top of the world! Yay!

If last semester I found myself in having a hard time in getting busy, I have definitely solved that problem this semester… Every single second is an opportunity to grow, experience and learn new and astonishing things. In particular, I would like to tell you everything about my new internship as a Video Production volunteer at YMCA, and how much I learned in just two days. It is unbelievable how much we can experience not only through the classes but also through interacting in the surrounding world.

This app is just so cool :)

First of all, I would love to talk about the career center at SBCC. In fact, it is all thanks to the website that they make available to every student at SBCC that I had the chance to apply to the YMCA Internship. On the career center website there is a link to an awesome page called the Job Connection. On this page it is possible to filter jobs, internships or volunteer opportunities in relation to majors and interests. Besides, they have also an app called Careers that is really well designed, and if now I have this cool internship it is all thanks to it! So, definitely go check out the career center and the Job Connection if you want to find something to keep you a little more busy!

Going back to my internship, now I have been working at the YMCA Marketing Department for a total of six hours worth much more time of knowledge. It has been great because I have not just been deepening my experience as concern film production but I have also been exposed to other important marketing and branding strategies along with important social issues that YMCA deals with. What YMCA does for the community is simply amazing because they are a non-profit organization with the power of saving lives. In fact, I have the job of promoting through videos one of their branches called Youth & Family Services which works with a local organization: Noah’s Anchorage Youth Crisis Shelter. I didn't know anything about this organization but I think that everybody should know about the awesome job that Noah’s is doing in the Santa Barbara community. In fact,

“Noah’s Anchorage Youth Crisis Shelter is a licensed residential eight-bed group home for children 10-17 years old and provides outreach to youth and young adults. Our unique services have been active in the Santa Barbara community for over 35 years and provide a trusted refuge and resource for youth and their families.” (YMCA)

Isn’t it unbelievable? I fell in love with their project and soon I’ll make sure to market their organization as well as I can through my short videos! I have already spent one day brainstorming about which kind of videos will be really worth making for market them at my best, and I have also been able to jot down some possible plans to make my video as effective as possible. It will be AWESOME!

Just a quick thing before wrapping this post up… This Tuesday on the West Campus I had the opportunity to see one of the most heart-breaking and emotional events ever. In fact, on the West Campus Loan, the nonprofit Active Minds spread 1,100 backpacks representing each student committing suicide in college every year. When I found out what the backpacks meant I almost cried. I know that it’s not nice to end this post with a sad note but I believe that it is really important to be aware of this fact. Speechless. 

Phi Theta Kappa cares it’s Day Of Caring!

This week can be described with one word: AMAZING! So many things happened but the most crazy and rewarding one was to get accepted to be a part of the Phi Theta Kappa Leadership!!  For who doesn’t know it yet, Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) is the international honors society of community colleges and

I tried to be fancy but it is
always so hard..

their goal is to promote academic excellence through providing opportunities for the development of their four Hallmarks: Leadership, Scholarship, Fellowship and Service. In order to become a member of the PTK Leadership it’s necessary to fill out an application and be interviewed by the current PTK Leadership and the three professors in charge of leading the society. Since the society is highly ranked it is necessary to show up at the interviewwith a BUSINESS ATTIRE… Well.. Since I am the most casual person in the whole world I obviously had nothing adequate to wear!!! Luckily my friend Shivani (the classiest person in the whole world) decided to give me a hand and help me with the Business Attire Shopping! And in the picture you can see the result.. I felt so weird… 

The same night of the day of the interview I received this freaking awesome email:

Yes, next to Historian there is my name!!!

Yaaaaaaaaayyyy! I got accepted for the position I desired so hard!!! Since I am a film production major, being the Historian for PTK it’s perfect because it will allow me to experiment with managing social networks, create short videos and take awesome pictures of the events we will organize! I am so excited to be a part of this!  

The first PTK event happened right this Saturday, and it consisted in having the whole leadership to volunteer for Day Of Caring! This event is a specific day in Santa Barbara were numerous people decide to give back to the community through applying to different volunteer positions. For me it was a “double event” since I was there not only as a PTK member but also as an SBCC Ambassador. 

Ambassadors + PTK = Top

Here the funniest "hacked"
conversation

As soon as the day started everything seemed to take a weird turn. First of all, I woke up super-duper tired and checked my phone finding out that someone was responding to my Facebook texts with another device. OMG!! Someone hacking my phone?!? My heart started beating and my first reaction was to call my friend Mimmi who was supposed to pick me up for the Day Of Caring breakfast. As soon as the phone started ringing I realized that the day before I logged in on Facebook with my friend’s phone, and he (more confused than I was) was texting back Mimmi asking why would she have to pick him up. HILARIOUS. After this, another series of funny things happened: a bird pooping on Nina’s head, Mimmi slipping on some water before entering the breakfast place, Linh spilling coffee allover the place… Well, the day didn’t seem to be a very lucky one.. 

Ladies and Gentlemen,
the Fall 2016 PTK Leadership

However, after we all had breakfast everything turned back to normal and we were ready to go to volunteeeeeeeeeerrr!! Most of the Ambassadors went to the beach for the coastal cleanse, instead I went with my new PTK buddies to pull up some weeds from the SBCC gardens. It was super hot and I was so tired but we all made it through and had an awesome day. Teamwork is always so rewarding especially when everybody is awesome and cares about Day Of Caring!

                                     Working hard! 

Community? Yes, please!

When graduating from high school everybody cannot stop thinking about how college will be like. Will it be fun? Boring? Will I be successful in my classes? Will I ever make it through the endless number of exams coming up? However, the hardest question I found myself answering was: how will I integrate myself smoothly in a totally new environment and who will be the people that will be there for me since I’m so far away from home? You probably will say: “you already left your country once! Why would it be so scary to start again a second time?!” Well… It is not as easy as you think! 

During my first weeks at SBCC I felt completely lost… I just talked with a few people in my classes, maybe have some lunch with a random new friend or two, but then? Yes.. I would just come back home, study, watch a movie on Netflix and go to bed. Zzz… Boooooring life!! After the first couple of weeks, I was convinced that college was an individualistic environment where everybody thinks about their own goals and future projects, but then I realized that I was just COMPLETELY WRONG! What I found out was that actually college is the greatest place to build communities and support each other! You just need to get INVOLVED and COMMIT to what you think is going to make you feel happy and satisfied! I know exactly that classes and studying are the main reasons why we go to school but involvement and community on campus are the two key words for a better life in college! 

Honors Program Third Friday!

Coming back to my lonely first weeks in college, I decided that my life had to change for the best. And when I decide something it needs to happen…  So, I rolled up my sleeves and started to participate in many activities as possible. I decided to take part to every single event organized by the noble Honors Program or by the cool Phi Theta Kappa’, but especially I joined every single activity organized by the SBCC Ambassadors! I started to feel included, meet people and build essential connections for a better campus life. What turned out was that not only I could feel a sense of accomplishment, but I could also say that finally I had people I could rely on and spend time during empty evenings and weekends. 

A Barbecue at my house with some Ambassadors!!

Now that the third semester at SBCC has started I am more than excited to share my life surrounded by amazing people and engage in stimulating activities. In fact, this semester I can say that I am not part of just one community, but many different ones, and each one of them is offering something special that I will bring with me for the rest of my life. Just to give you a prospect of what I will be some of the things I will talk about in the future posts I am going to list here the main programs, clubs and activities I am taking part of: 

• Honors Program along with its PODS Mentorship Initiative
• Ambassadors Program (Red is my favorite color as the Ambassadors is my favorite program)
• 2020 A Year Without War
• Phi Theta Kappa
• ESL Tutor 
• Italian Reader

You should really check out the links I posted because these are really good programs and organizations everybody should join! They are my life now…

The Ambassadors Group for Fall 2016!!

Oh, and about that Ambassadors Program in red… Well… The Ambassadors Program has been the one which helped me the most in feeling part of a community, and it also taught me a lot about people, how to interact with them and make them feel part of something great. In brief, the Ambassadors are really cool people who care about about building a community of openminded and active students at SBCC. In order to do so, the program organizes events and activities throughout the whole year to keep students engaged, and to create new strong relationships between SBCC students. In the Ambassadors program I met the coolest people who now I consider my best friends. I don’t only work with them but we also are the best buddies when it comes to study, hang out and eat together!!! FYI: if a table is particularly loud at the SBCC Luria Library, don’t worry, it means that a few Ambassadors meet up together randomly and started to productively study and spend time together…

This is my past, future and present...

Hello Everybody! My name is Elisa and this is my very first blog post for Santa Barbara City College! I am so thrilled to keep you posted about my student life here in Santa Barbara, and to let you know everything about this city, its secrets and my adventures! How awesome is it to get the huge privilege to become one of the few student bloggers for such an amazing college? 

First of all I’d like to let you know that I am not a California native… I know, California people are always so cool, but if you are ok with it I can try really hard to be as close to their coolness as possible. And I am not even American… well, even if I’d love to be American, I actually am one of the 2,000 international students that attend SBCC every year! I am from Italy, and in particular from a really small town called Vimercate, really close to the Italian fashion capital, Milan. Maybe now you will be wondering how I end up right here in Santa Barbara from the small and unknown town of Vimercate. Just keep reading and I’ll clear up your minds. 

The beautiful Denver East High School

Everything started on the 19th of August, 2014 when I landed with my feet for the first time on the American soil at the Denver International Airport. It was the beginning of my International Exchange Student Year and also the start of the year that would change my life forever. In Colorado, I had the chance to fall in love with the American culture and the American people… Here it’s not just cowboys, french fries and burgers! In the United States there is rather the ethnic variety and cultural diversity that I have aways wanted to be a part of. In my heart I knew that the year in Denver would have never been my last time in America. Actually, I knew I didn’t want to leave at all! For this reason, I started to go to my counselor's office every single day and I put all my efforts in persuading her to give me the chance to graduate from an American high school and remain in this amazing country for my college years. Therefore, after struggling to get all my high school credits and AP tests done, I had the great satisfaction to earn at the Denver East High School an American Diploma! All of this thanks also to my amazing councilor Linsday Visceri, the support of my amazing host family and Italian family. 

With the diploma in my hands and still really confused about my future I took the decision that would break my parents’ hearts but that at the same time would build a better future for my life. Instead of coming back to Italy as my whole family wanted, I applied to the first and the best city college in the United States: Santa Barbara City College. When I received the acceptance email, I actually realized that I was just 18 years old but I would have left my home country for a really loooong time or even for ever. My mum with tears slowly running on her chicks was trying to persuade me to stay, but I had taken my decision. America was going to become my new home, and now, here I am! Second year at SBCC! …and everything is awesome.

That was the story of how I ended up here in Santa Barbara, but my traveller soul is going to lead me soon somewhere else.. In fact, I am a film production major and I am looking forward to transfer by the end of this year in a university in Los Angeles to be in THE place where all the movies are made. USC would be my dream school but for my major there is just a 3% acceptance rate! Just 12 people get accepted in the film program every year… Will I make this dream come true? I’ll let you know in the future! Anyways, movies are my passion, and it would be more than awesome to turn my little love for movies into a job. I love watching movies but also creating them, so why shouldn’t I try to start film career?!

I told you about past and future but let’s talk a little about the present! This semester, I am involved in a lot of programs and extracurricular activities and I can’t wait to talk about it here in my following posts! Just follow me here and you’ll know everything about my present…

With lots of love,

Elisa