Volunteering Embraces Learning Opportunities

Volunteering Embraces Learning Opportunities

By F.Chavarría.

For those college students who have felt disheartened by their academic performance and have ever had to deal with doubts to keep on going with their majors, well you are not alone.

In 2013, I was extremely disappointed with the B.A. in English because I almost flunked Oral Communication II. When I was taking Techniques I, I felt incredibly insecure about my public speaking skills, so the word "speech" was equal to "panic attack.”But as many of you know, there is no way to be exempt from oral presentations in this major, and  the time came to choose the topic for my speech. It had to be related to a social issue, so I thought that human trafficking was a "trendy" topic those days. The more I learned about it, the more interested and confident I felt to present my speech. During the research process, I had the opportunity to interview some officials and people who had worked on the issue. In the same week, I was invited to watch Nefarious,a documentary on human trafficking. There, I learned about LightForce International, a nonprofit organization that fights against human trafficking and the commercial sex industry. I knew I wanted to be a part of this movement to abolish modern day slavery. I presented my speech and actually I got a good grade, but the most interesting part was that I started volunteering for this NGO. Although the academic low was already demanding and time consuming, I got more involved within the LightForce organization. Most meetings at LightForce were in English, and that definitely contributed for me to gain more confidence in my command of the language. Thus, here are some pieces of advice that will help you enjoy and improve your academic performance:

Study what interests you the most

Even though you are forced to read and to do research about different topics that you do not really like, take advantage of those projects. In that way, you will be more committed to your projects and you will enjoy it,  while you improve your language skills.

Volunteer and gain experience

With the tight schedules and the academic workload in college, it might seem like something impossible to achieve, but if you have the chance to do it, you will not regret. Organizations and institutions are not the only that benefit from volunteering. By volunteering you not only gain knowledge and professional experience, but also improve your social and language skills. Also, you might get to know your interests better and discover what you would like to do with your degree and you will be able to combine your expertise in diverse disciplines.

Strengthen your community

This is another advantage of volunteering because you might network with new people, but you can do this in different ways. You can create projects and involve people to grow together in an intentional way of learning. 

Do not let hard circumstances diminish your potential as a person and as a professional! Allow yourself to be creative!

Missing Money and Resignations Rock AELM

Missing Money and Resignations Rock AELM

By B.A.Umaña.

AELM Informative Board.

AELM (Asociación de Estudiantes de Lenguas Modernas) has been rocked repeatedly this semester as the vast majority of its members have resigned, leaving the association with a stagnating total of two individuals in its board. According to Natalie Torres, now head of the board, irregularities in the electoral process, theft, and extracurricular responsibilities have been the cause of this instability.

“In the assembly [of students where the board was chosen], we weren’t able to elect a treasurer or a board attorney due to the fact that […] no one was interested in taking the positions.”

This, said Torres, lead the board to give the duty of managing the associations money to one of their auxiliary members. “Because this auxiliary member rose to the position rather than taking it in the first place, she was unable to receive the proper training needed to handle the budget reports for the association, making it difficult to handle the paperwork she was responsible for.”

Natalie Torres in an interview for TCN. 

The situation worsened after they read the first report she prepared. Analyzing this document, they realized there were significant irregularities in the data she had, and, after checking the money they had in their reserves, they were further shocked to find out that around 200,000 colones were missing from their reserve.

“Because of this theft, the president of the board, the auxiliary member aforementioned, and our representative for the student council resigned,” Torres explains. “Aside from them, one other member decided to resign because he had work, and another was discharged because she was no longer a student of this school.”

Now, only Torres and Dennis Ruiz are members of AELM, and what makes everything worse is that a new board cannot be created.

“Because few of those that have unofficially resigned have not brought their resignation letters in,” Torres said. “We can’t have a new assembly.” This, adds Torres, puts a burden on her.

“I Swear We Were Infinite”: The Perks of Being a Wallflower Echoes our Teen Voices

“I Swear We Were Infinite”: The Perks of Being a Wallflower Echoes our Teen Voices

By W.S.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower portrays a shy teenager named Charlie who starts writing letters to an anonymous person so-called “Friend.” Through letters, Charlie talks to this “Friend” about his life, his worries and dreams.

He is unstable and pessimistic. He fears loneliness; he tries too hard to fit in to the point of accepting things he is not sure about; he is even afraid of his own feelings to the point where he gets confused all the time.

When reading this book, you might be reminded of your own teenage days and will probably become quite nostalgic at times. Many readers can identify with the challenges that Charlie faces, like the fear of loneliness, the hardship to fit in a social circle, the confusion to define who you are and what you want, the memories of your first crush, the loss of innocence and the daily feeling of anger without an apparent reason.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this book is the style in which it is written. These letters to an anonymous “Friend” tell the reader how much Charlie needs of someone to listen to his thoughts and his perception of  the world. This choice of form allows the reader to understand Charlie’s psyche and feel close to him. However, his tendency to cry in public and in private is a motif that disconnects you from the character. Charlie goes through serious psychological issues, and still he is portrayed as a brilliant student who gets A’s in all his classes. It is not surprise, then that the reader stops seeing Charlie as someone to relate to since he becomes just another cardboard character who suffers from psychological problems.

But even if this can be an issue to some people, there is not denying that this book presents a great story about the struggles of teenagehood. It presents the worries that everyone has had a least once in their lifetime, and yet at the end it gives readers hope. “Everything will be okay” is what many need at certain points of their lives.

Book Lovers’ Club: An Evening Spent with Coffee and Friends

Book Lovers met in Café Kracovia

Book Lovers’ Club: An Evening Spent with Coffee and Friends

By N. Fernández.

While enjoying a dessert with a hot coffee and the whistling of birds, coming book lovers settled the beginning of a perfect evening. Book lovers, mostly undergraduate students and a primary school teacher, gathered last April 8th at Café Kracovia to share their reflections towards the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Valeria Soto

Participants seemed highly enthusiastic and willing to listen to different perspectives as well as to share what they thought were the novel’s main themes. Even though the novel features many interesting characters, the session of  about an hour and a half allowed the members to discuss the plot and Charlie, the story’s protagonist.

Valeria Soto, a graduated English major, attended the reading club and stated, “It is a great opportunity for all of us geek-book lovers to share our opinions about the books we love and also get to know other books and people as well. I really love it. It is an amazing space for all of us to be ourselves without restrictions.” Also, in the Book Lover’s Club group in Facebook,  Juan José Valverde also commented that “[It was a] great meeting, great book... waiting for the new book choice, and for the next meeting!”

Juan José Valverde

This was the first time the reading club takes place and it aims to become a solid group, where people with similar interests have the opportunity to invigorate their passion for literature, while developing their language and critical skills.

Meetings will be held once per month. After members have discussed the novel previously chosen, they decide which one to read next.

University of Costa Rica- University of Whom?

University of Costa Rica- University of Whom?

By I.Carranza.

Costa Rica is known worldwide for investing a great amount of resources in education. For instance, 1.3% of GDP is invested in public universities. The University of Costa Rica (UCR) receives 50% of this percentage, yet it seems that this system has not been entirely effective in helping the poor. Contrary to what it is commonly argued, high-school students from well-off families, especially those who attend Rodrigo Facio campus, have benefited the most.

An article from La Nación, “Alumnos de colegios privados con más opción de ingresar a la UCR” depicts this concern. Fernández shows that students from private and semi-private high schools have twice probabilities of being admitted into college than those from public ones. Based on this source, among all the students from private high schools that took the admission exam, 47% were accepted into a major; the percentage of students from semi-private high schools accepted was almost the same, standing at 46%. For students from public high schools, however, the percentage was a meager 23%. Besides these numbers, journalist Sergio Morales, in his article “U públicas, para los de más ingreso,” showed that, in Rodrigo Facio campus, 63% of students come from private high schools. In her doctoral thesis, Silvia Castro, current Rector of ULACIT, makes another interesting observation. In "Costa Rican higher education, its universities and students," Castro points that from the total of high school students, only 9% attend a private institution. So, if 63% out of that small 9% are being admitted, students from public schools are underrepresented. If so, this is provoking a socially and economically unequal system.

Others argue that the system is actually having an adverse effect on the poor. For instance, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, a researcher from the Cato Institute, points out that poor people are paying taxes to subsidy the education of the upper middle class. Hidalgo also mentions, in his blog titled Hood Robin en Acción, that well-off families originally invest on private schools and pay considerable amounts of money for it. Yet when they get to college, they pay much less for higher education than what they used to pay in high school. Hidalgo refers to this issue as the Hood Robin effect because it is an inverted effect; the rich take advantage of the poor.

The question, then, is how to mitigate this situation? Recently, the UCR headmaster, Henning Jensen, implemented a new program called +Equidad, which intents to improve the access to people from public high schools with a low-academic performance. This system assigns 400 spots, specifically for high schools that may obtain 12% or less of admitted students. After the regular admission process ends, those students who belong to these institutions enter into a second round for admission.

However, economist Thelmo Vargas and Juan Carlos Hidalgo, along with politicians like Otto Guevara and Ottón Solís, have argued that a deeper change is needed to reverse the situation. They have suggested that the UCR should modify the tuition system so that the students who can afford it pay properly for their education.

But the UCR authorities refuse this idea of modifying the tuition system because it goes against the institution’s social principles and because they have higher expectations from the +Equidad program. Yet why playing this pointless back and forth game? While this is a controversial situation, we should consider that if we change the tuition system, we could have more resources to run programs such as Jensen’s +Equidad or to provide more scholarships for low-income students. In this way, we could integrate both proposals and take advantage of both. At the end, this is not about classes engaging raids for education opportunities; this is about providing opportunities for all based on their financial status, be it poor or be it rich. As critical UCR students we dare to preach so often, we should question our current system. We ought to support a more equitable organization that provides favorable conditions for all groups in our society.

3rd Issue, June 2015

Online version coming soon!