CUNY LaGuardia Community College Top Questions

What should every freshman at your school know before they start?

Ronald

The advice I'd give high school senior self is to participate. To be part of the college rather than just go there. I attended another school before LaGuardia Community College and all I did was go. I didn't apply myself because I kept myself closed off. I chose that path and it affected my grades and my general ambition. By treating college as just a place to get a degree for job applications, you do yourself a disservice. You are not learning because knowledge just doesn't come from the classroom. It comes from your fellow students and their stories. As a writer, I use interacting with people to help me with my stories. The final part of my participation advice is that I can tell others what my goals as a career are. I'm a writer, but I never told anyone till I went back to school. I was too fearful of taking that choice, but I want to tell myself to take the chance. You will not regret it.

Ana

If I could go back in time I would gladly advise, even admonish myself to study nursing.

Nathaniel

There are many things I would tell myself if able to go back and talk to myself as a senior in high school. One thing I believe would be most important to discuss would be scholarships. I would give myself advice on how important and beneficial scholarships can be to help fund a post secondary education. This is one thing people did not talk much about to me. In addition to scholarships I would urge myself to get involved in some extracurricular activities like student counsel or off site volunteering. These activities would have provided me with community awareness and supported any future leadership efforts. Volunteering is a great way to be a leader by showing others how they can help in their community. By volunteering a student can help themselves become self sufficient by taking matters into their own hands. Volunteering can also provide one with a requirement for many scholarships. College flows smoother when you have financial support because you are allowed to focus on your studies. By having initial scholarship awareness I could save more time for school work and studies.

Marcelo

Marcelo, you have to stop doing what you're doing and go home or a library and start getting ahead by reading books that interest you really. Dont have a goal that you're going to make a lot of money but make goals that gives you passion. Start narrowing down what you want to do in life. Participate in any summer programs and start being realistically. Be real to yourself.

Tasha

If i could speak to myself as a high school senior, I would advise myself to, as the cliche goes, ' put myself out there'. College is a wonderful opportunity to build leadership skills and make long lasting connections with peers and organizations. I would advise myself to take every opportunity presented and learn from the experiences. As a college student now, my one regret is not being more involved in my college and I feel I am now playing 'catch up'. I would advise my young self to participate and be an active member of campus and join many groups because, in the end, these groups helps lead to academic excellence. It is in these campus activities one really learns and builds character. Learning from peers and mentors outside of the class room helps strengthen your academic goals and life inside the classroom. I would advice my high school self to be more open to these opportunities.

Kate

While in high school I was not the honor role student my parents wished I would be, rarely got good grades and if I passed it was barely cutting it. You can say I was lazy, I call it my friends and of course bad judgment. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd and doing things that I knew were wrong but did anyway, just to fit. It wasn?t until reality struck that I got my act together. After watching if not all at least half of my friends become teenage mothers, end up in jail or even worse dead of something as meaningless as drugs I can honestly say I changed. I decided to get my life back on track, take control, and become the woman I knew my mother would one day be proud of. I graduated high school, not with the best grades but I did and then enrolled into college. If I could change anything in life it would most certainly be being more dedicated in high school. I wish I would have taken my education more seriously and as a result I would have been able to obtain for being an honor student.

Christina

When I graduated from LaGuardia High School (different from the college), I was majoring in instrumental music, but I knew I didn't want to continue with it. I didn't want to go to college at all; not right away. I wanted to take a semester's break. I was pressured into entering Brooklyn College by my mother, who had not gone to college and got a job straight out of high school. This proved not to work well for me, as I ended up quitting anyway. I think the one thing I would tell my high school self would be to listen to her and not worry so much about being unsure of what to do. Just rack up the required credits and explore. Right now, I'm working full-time and attending school, and it's so much harder than things would have been back then. I want nothing more than to be able to quit my job and focus solely on school, because doing both is exhausting, but I can't do that. The message I have for my former self: It's not as bad as you think. Relax. Just do it.

Tanya

Being in college I learned so much information other than what I was told in high school. If I can go back in time and talk to myself as a high school senior I would tell myself to do all kinds of research on any school I may be considering. The reason I would tell myself that is because, if a person is going to go to college they should know what that school is going to offer them in and out of the class room. They should know how that college stands academically, the type of activities they offer out of the class rooms, also the type of recourses that are available to the students. If I knew this information when I was still a high school senior I would have chosen my college wisely because college is not all work plus it is refreshing to know that there is always someone there to answer any question or concerns I may have.

Lara

Several instances from my school years I would possibly do over. I could have been more involved in extracurricular activities, made a better decision on my college choice, or pursued a different degree, which would have provided me with better job opportunities. However, my choice would not be to do over any moment throughout my years in school. I believe the choices I made in the past have given me knowledge to make better judgments for my future. Sometimes I think back on decisions I made as poor choices, and would question myself what if I chose differently; would the outcomes be better or worse? I cannot change what has been determined, and I do not regret past events. I can use those poor choices and turn them into good alternatives. If I wanted to be more involved in the community I can volunteer, or further myself in my career goals I can continue my education. I have learned to stay focused on my ambitions I want to achieve in life, and keep a positive outlook. Events I experienced from school I use them as reflections of my life, and hope to continue to learn from the choices I make.

Michael

I would not say anything because I made the right moves by attending college for a semester and then enlisted into the United States Marine Corps. In order to accept the value of college, the series of events that I went through made me understand the importance of higher education. I have the Marine Corps to thank for that.