 |
| | | | |
Becoming A Master Student, Concise, Tenth Edition
Dave Ellis
| | | |
| |
|  |
|
| |
Master Students can come from any background, but they do share a number of common characteristics. Self-respect, persistence, and a sense of responsibility to that which is important to you are some of the qualities that can help a person meet hard challenges and succeed. These are qualities that have helped the 1999 College Survival Scholarship winner, Suny Urrutia Moore.
Suny was born in a small rural town in Chile where she was taught by nuns at the local parochial school as her family worked on the farm. Her family later moved her to the city where she attended a larger elementary public school for girls. She did well at this school, and was recommended for the Superior Institute of Commerce, instead of the regular high school. This school gave students not only a general education, but also specialization in trade skills, such as secretarial, sales, and accounting. Superior was the only trade school in the city, and it was attended by a tenth of the student population. By working hard there, Suny aimed to raise her marketability in the workplace.
While attending the Superior Institute, Suny worked at an assistant in an accounting office in the city. She graduated after 7 years of studies and later appeared before the board to present her thesis and take her exams for a Degree in General Accounting. From there, she went to work in a large appliance firm as the assistant to the head accountant. After about a year of work, the head accountant retired, and Suny was offered his position. During this time, she had applied to the US Embassy for a visa that would allow her to move to the United States to work. When she was offered the position of head accountant, her application to move to the USA was accepted. She declined the position and prepared to relocate.
Before moving to the United States, Suny had to appear before a consul in Santiago, the capital city, to present her case for leaving Chile. Suny explained that she had a sister she wanted to be closer to already living in Nebraska as a citizen. She also wanted to see if she liked it and could succeed. She was granted permission and arrived with a permanent resident status.
She moved to Kimball, Nebraska, a small town in the Midwest. She lived with her sister and her family. Upon her arrival she spoke no English, so she stayed at home taking care of her sister's children and helping around the house. She practiced her English by reading the simplest of books and by working with her brother-in-law, who was trying to learn Spanish. For the most part, the resources available to a native Spanish speaker attempting to learn English in this small Midwestern town were rather limited. At times she felt like a baby, unable to do anything to get along. This was the source of the greatest stress in her life. Suny would study and pray to make this better.
After being in the United States for one year, she was offered a job at a local accounting firm. Still with a limited command of English, she entered the workforce. Though she could handle the tasks required by her position-well enough, in fact, for her direct superior to be intimidated-she still had some trouble communicating with others, and felt the frustration caused by this language barrier.
Through the help from her family, her own studying, and the exposure of day-to-day interactions with others at work, her ear became better trained to the English language, and her ability to communicate greatly improved. She was offered a job at an oil field firm working in a one-person office handling a number of tasks from receptionist to payroll work and accounting.
During this time, she kept in constant contact with her family back in Chile. Family and friends have been an important part of Suny's life since childhood. She wrote many letters to stay in touch, and when writing became difficult or not enough, she would send audiotapes. Her family and friends were very supportive, and she has remained close with many of the friends from her youth to this day.
After living in Nebraska for four and a half years, Suny moved to Denver, Colorado. By this time, she had gotten married. The big city proved to be much more overwhelming than Kimball, Nebraska, and Suny was confronted with a new set of difficulties in getting around in the city (she would not drive for fear of the big city traffic) and, therefore, was limited in her ability to communicate with people in her daily life. Nevertheless, Suny persevered, getting a job at another firm and later moving up the corporate ladder at other companies.
In 1987, Suny left work to raise a family of her own, staying at home with her son and daughter for 11 years. She felt the desire to get back to work and took a job as a bilingual paraprofessional in the Denver Public School system. She worked with teachers and students in Denver's large Hispanic population who had trouble communicating because their first language was not English.
Still, Suny felt limited in her dealings with English language, especially in writing and spelling. Coming from an educated background, she did not want to appear ignorant simply because of her inability to communicate most effectively in a second language. After working in the school system for three years, she was eligible for a scholarship specifically available to bilingual paraprofessionals offered by the Bueno Center for Multicultural Education, a federally funded educational assistance program at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The program was designed to support paraprofessionals in their educational development to benefit them in future plans for work or teaching. Suny took advantage of this program in order to improve herself and gain confidence in her associations with others.
In the summer before her first year in college, Suny took a Becoming a Master Student class and gained a number of skills that would prove useful throughout the rest of her college career and in her life outside of school. She developed the ability to prioritize, to organize her thoughts in written form, and to study more effectively and in the right setting. She found out the benefit of using 3X5 cards while studying, and learned how to delegate tasks at home-a skill that has led to a more cooperative family unit.
Suny went to school on the Bueno scholarship for one year before deciding that the full-time commitment was too taxing on her family. She reduced her course load to two classes, and in doing so, lost the scholarship. Her Becoming A Master Student instructor encouraged her to enter the College Survival Essay contest, and she wrote her essay for both her final English assignment and as her school's submission. She only got a "B" on the paper, but won the contest, giving her the money to continue her education just as her other scholarship was ending.
Suny is currently finishing her Associates Degree in Liberal Arts at AIMS Community College, and hopes to be able to use her degree to get a position as an interpreter. Through her experiences, she has learned that education is not simply a matter of grades, but of personal development, and educational opportunities should not be taken for granted. This is especially true for the degree that she has decided to pursue later in her life, where responsibility to family and work make it harder to devote the energy to school.
Suny is grateful for the opportunity to go back to school later in her life. It has given her confidence to communicate with others that she did not have before, and it has helped her to gain a perspective that she would not have had being at home and out of the workforce.
More information is available for each of the Master Student Profiles that appear in Becoming a Master Student. Start by visiting these web sites to find out more about topics related to Suny Moore's experiences. Then, use your favorite search engine to find more information. Remember to think critically about information you find online.
Student Voice: If you find a URL that you think your fellow Master Students will find helpful in researching a Master Student Profile, submit your findings to College Survival for posting on this web site.
Mail to: csweb.collegesurvival@cengage.com
|
|
| | |
|
|
|
