S3 / Episode 2 – The Benefits of Joining a Club

RAQUEL: WELCOME TO ANOTHER EPISODE OF BMCC OPENLAB STUDENT VOICES. I'M RAQUEL NERIS, AND IN THIS EPISODE, IQRA SHEIKH, FROM THE OPENLAB TEAM, INTERVIEWS RILEY AND KEBA, TWO ENGINEERING STUDENTS AND LEADERS OF THE ROBOTICS CLUB. IN THIS INTERVIEW, THEY EMPHASIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNITY AND FINDING MOTIVATION IN WHAT THEY LOVE. THEY ALSO MENTION THE REVIVAL OF THE ROBOTICS CLUB AND GIVE ADVICE TO INCOMING STUDENTS. LET’S LISTEN TO THEIR STORY. ___ Iqra: Hi, this is Iqra from the Open Lab, and today I have two students from the Robotics Club at BMCC. Do you guys want to introduce yourselves? Kebah: Absolutely. My name is Kebah Amadi. Kebah Amadi Nelson. Riley: Yeah hi. I'm Riley Josick from the Robotics Club. Iqra: Cool. And what do you guys do at the Robotics Club? Kebah: So currently I'm a club treasurer, so I primarily work with the club funds and order parts for future competitions and stuff. Riley: Yeah, and so I'm the president. I'm just kind of like organizing everything and just kind of figuring it out. Iqra: Oh, amazing. Iqra: Okay, nice. So for this season, which is season three, we're talking about students who are almost, you know, finished with their associate's degree at BMCC, and you guys have how many semesters left? Kebah: So this is actually my last semester. I'm graduating in December, and I'm working on my transfer applications. Riley: I also have two semesters unless I drop out, then this would be my final semester. Iqra: No, you're not going to drop out. Riley: I have two more semesters. Yeah. I'm transferring somewhere else. Iqra: Do you guys want to share like the colleges that you've been applying to for transferring? Kebah: Yeah, so overall, I've been transferring. I want to do aerospace engineering, so I've been... I applied to Syracuse University, Georgia Tech, SUNY Buffalo, Purdue University. I also applied to Iowa State University, which I just got accepted to. Heck yeah. Iqra: Yep, it's beautiful. Kebah: So yeah. Iqra: More other acceptance to come. Time will tell. Okay. Riley: Yeah, okay. So I guess like top choice would probably be something like Cornell, but I've also been looking at other schools too. Yeah. So probably just like schools like UBuff, Stony Brook, Northeastern, Northwestern would be nice. Iqra: Ooh, wow. Riley: So I'm going for like robotics and mechatronics but I've also been looking into like AI, and so UPenn is a great AI program for a bachelor's, which would be cool to go into. Iqra: Wow, beautiful. I'm with such like level-headed, focused individuals who are so talented and who are going to have great futures ahead of them. Kebah: Yeah, a lot of sleepless nights. Iqra: I know. I mean, if it's the thing that you love doing, you're going to have these sleepless nights. Kebah: Absolutely. Iqra: You know? Okay. So because this season is towards students who are close to graduating, one of the main focuses, what are the things that have helped you to continue your education at BMCC? Like what is something that motivates you to always come? Or things in the school that factor into why you want to come and, you know, do your thing and then hopefully get out, you know? Riley: Yeah. I mean, for me, honestly, like, and this is also, I guess, kind of like what got me through high school. It was just like having a strong, like, network of people to kind of like lift me up and having a strong network of people who just like they're also going to school and they're also like just as motivated. So like we're all trying to like make it out and trying to all go to like Google and whatnot. Iqra: Networking Riley: No, sorry, community. Yeah. I mean, definitely a strong community. Iqra: Community. Kebah: For me, it's also a similar reason. Definitely the people help me, motivate me to come to school every day. I remember back in my CUNY at Staten Island days, I didn't really have many friends over there. So I just wasn't that motivated to go to class at all. With that, it's also because I enjoy what I do and that's what motivates me and keeps me going every single day. I love things related to aerospace. I love airplanes, rockets, stuff like that. So just knowing that BMCC is just a step for that journey into my future to work on these machines, just excites me every day and it helps me motivate me to come. Iqra: Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. So it sounds like a mixture of passion and community. You find your community based on your passion. Kebah: Absolutely. __ RAQUEL: KEBA AND RILEY'S MOTIVATION COMES FROM A GENUINE PASSION FOR WHAT THEY DO. WE CAN ALSO NOTICE HOW DEDICATED THEY ARE AS THEY DISCUSS THEIR FUTURE ASPIRATIONS AND THE ROLES THAT COMMUNITY AND SUPPORT NETWORKS HAVE PLAYED IN THEIR ACADEMIC JOURNEYS. NEXT, THEY SHARE MORE ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES AS LEADERS OF THE ROBOTIC CLUB. ___ Iqra: And that led you guys to meet each other at the robotics club. Was this already like a club before you guys became president and treasurer or did you guys create it? Kebah: This was definitely a club before I was even here at this club. I've been here for two years. I remember at a previous club fair, we had a member, like an OG member from like before 2010, come talk to us about the club. So this club has definitely been here at BMCC for a really long time. But I would say we're more like in the revival phase because COVID really hit the club really hard and a lot of clubs really hard. Yeah. So I guess you could call this robotics 2.0 that we're currently building. Iqra: Oh, I love that. So you guys are also building it from the ground up. Kebah: Pretty much, yeah. Also leaving some type of presence because you guys are almost leaving. So it's like who's going to look after your child? Big club. Kebah: Pretty much. So like anyone listening, if you're interested, after I'm gone, you know, my position as treasurer is open. Iqra: Ooh. Nice. So any advice that you would give incoming students at BMCC? What advice would you give them? Riley: Yeah, I mean like obviously you have to do a lot of planning, like plan out what classes you want to take and stuff because like for me at least, I want to do computer engineering as like a major. So, you know, that's kind of related to going into robotics. And so to do that there's not really, and no community college really has like a robotics program. So just kind of knowing what I'm doing going into it, I just have to like plan out what classes I want to take, knowing what classes are going to like transfer over well. But even if like you don't know kind of what you want to do, I think in that case I would definitely just like take my time and kind of take my time to explore classes and just like explore a lot of different interests because for me I still want to like explore stuff in like arts and whatnot and just being able to take those classes would also be a great opportunity. Kebah: Yeah. So for me something that I would, like some advice I would give for incoming freshmen is every day, and I know this is a little cliché, but really try the hardest. Like I remember when I was going through college initially, like I was, you know, giving half of my effort. I just didn't really care about what I was doing. I just wanted to, I didn't want to travel the journey. I just wanted to get to the finish line. That's not how life works. So you have to work hard at what you do. Really like sometimes you can't give it 100%, but really put in the work, study, take the time to study, find a quiet place like I did. I have a quiet place in the library. I call it my secret spot where I just come and study and really just lock in because as you go to higher level classes, things get hard, things get confusing, and you don't want to fall behind. So definitely put in max effort. Riley: Actually, there was one more thing that I think was even like more important to planning, and that's like kind of getting more like outside, just like, yeah, just one of my things, like going outside and putting yourself out there more. Just because like throughout high school, I literally did not talk to anybody, and so like my only friends were from middle school. And so like I did terribly in all of my classes, and then like high school just wasn't a fun experience. But I guess towards the end like my second semester of senior year was when I started like talking to more people. And so just literally getting to know my classmates and just getting comfortable like talking to people who had similar interests, like even that was kind of hard. And so I was like going out there, and it was like, okay, you know, now it kind of sucks. But like getting into college and starting college, I got like more used to talking to people. And even now I'm still like kind of going out there and still trying to put myself out there. And like it's so helpful even just for like networking. Like you can meet like a lot of cool people. Like this one guy I met just, he's like a genius, and I probably wouldn't have met him if like I didn't like just go out and talk to him. Iqra: I love that. That's such good advice. And also just like life advice in general, because once college ends, life is still going to happen, and you still need to figure out how to continue finding your way in life. Iqra: Beautiful. Okay. Well, thank you guys so much. Iqra: This is Iqra from the Open Lab. And my guests… Kebah: Kebah Riley: Yeah, and Riley. Riley. Gabo and Riley. Iqra: Okay. Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me and to record this episode and, yeah. Kebah: Thank you. Riley:Thank you Iqra: Okay. ___ RAQUEL: RILEY AND KEBA’S EXPERIENCES WITH THE ROBOTICS CLUB AND PURSUING THEIR DREAMS IN ENGINEERING SHOW HOW DEDICATION AND SUPPORT NETWORKS CAN SHAPE A STUDENT'S PATH. THIS EPISODE IS PART OF OUR THIRD SEASON, FINDING YOUR PATH THROUGH COLLEGE, FOCUSING ON THE STORIES OF STUDENTS WHO HAVE EXPLORED, QUESTIONED, AND DISCOVERED THE PATH THEY WANT TO FOLLOW, BOTH AT BMCC AND IN LIFE. IF YOU HAVE A STORY YOU'D LIKE TO SHARE ON A FUTURE EPISODE OR A MESSAGE FOR THE STUDENTS IN THIS EPISODE, EMAIL US AT BMCC.OPENLAB.PODCAST@GMAIL.COM. YOUR VOICE MATTERS. THANK YOU FOR LISTENING, AND SEE YOU IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE OPENLAB STUDENT VOICES PODCAST!