S1 / Episode 4 – Just get involved!

Debbie, a liberal arts student at BMCC, discusses her experience with creating a sense of community at the college. She mentions that she chose BMCC because of the easy commute and the variety of student activities offered. Debbie emphasizes the importance of getting involved in clubs and events to build relationships and connections. She also encourages students to take advantage of the resources available at BMCC. Debbie suggests that BMCC could improve by better marketing events and encouraging student involvement. She advises incoming students to not buy textbooks before class starts and to get involved in the school community, even if they are shy. Overall, Debbie believes that students should make the most of their time at BMCC and not take their opportunities for granted. Welcome to Student Voices, a podcast that presents inspiring stories of BMCC students. This season, we are launching a series of interviews about the challenges in developing a sense of belonging and creating a community as a BMCC student. In this episode, Iqba Shaikh, from the Open Lab team, interviews Debbie, a liberal arts major and an example of someone that takes advantage of all the resources and opportunities that BMCC offers. In this interview, Debbie's experience puts some light on BMCC's strengths in helping students create community, as well as in what ways it can improve. Let's listen to the interview. Hi. Hello, everyone. My name is Iqba Shaikh, and I am the student outreach college assistant for Open Lab, and today I have Debbie with me, and I'll give her the time to introduce herself. Okay. Hi, everybody. My name is Debbie. I'm a liberal arts student at BMCC. I'll be graduating this semester, and I'm also a senator on the student government board. Cool. Graduating soon. Yup. Yeah. Are you excited for that? I'm kind of excited, but kind of not excited because I have to leave BMCC. Yeah. It's like such a great community, and now it feels like I have to start all over again. Start all over again. Yeah. Yup. Are you going to stay with CUNY or do SUNY? I'm going to try... Or private? Both. Okay. I don't know for sure, but I'm applying to both, and then I'll see. Okay. Cool. All right. So I'm going to get started with the questions that we ask our students when they participate in this podcast. So the first being is, why BMCC? Why did you choose to come here? Okay. So one of the main reasons why I picked BMCC is because of the commute. The commute is the easiest commute to my house, considering I live far, far away, in Far Rockaway. So I just have to take the A train, and that's way easier than like buses or other type of trains. You know, people take two trains or three trains. That's too much. Just take the A train. But also, BMCC had a great website that I looked at. They had a lot of different student activities that I was interested in being a part of, and like that's what contributed to me picking BMCC. Cool. Far Rockaway is far. We can estimate that Debbie takes at least one hour and 20 minutes to get to BMCC. However, taking only one train is a relief. Fortunately, BMCC has many trains nearby. Debbie's comment about commuting is relevant because students can lose precious time that could be used for studying, practicing leisure activities, resting, and creating connections. I know you said this earlier, but do you feel a sense of community here or belonging, which you mentioned that, you know, because you do have that, it's going to be hard to transfer or to, you know, continue your education, knowing that you have to recreate this community again. So I guess what we can do is talk about, yeah, how you made the community. The main way that I made my community here at BMCC is through clubs and going to events and meeting new people. Like every Wednesday they have club hours from 2 to 4, so I would just be everywhere. I would be at UMLA one Wednesday, the other Wednesday I'd be with Conexiones, the other Wednesday I would be like everywhere. So just by being involved in the BMCC events and the BMCC community, that really helped me to build a lot of the community and relationships I have now. Also, you know, sometimes people just think of BMCC and they're like, it's a community college, I'm just going to come to class and go home, come to class and go home. But I'm like a totally different person. I like come to class and I stick around, see whatever is going on, if they have events, because they don't just have events on Wednesdays, they even have one right now. Oh yeah, and there's an AIDS event, yeah. And Black History Month, too. Yeah, and the VSU club is also down there, too. So they have a lot of stuff going on during the week and I just like to be around and I get to know what's going on. Yeah, which makes sense because that's how you're able to meet people. Is there anything about BMCC that you wish was different? Or are you content with everything? And if you're content with everything, what is the everything? So, in a way, I am, like, happy with how BMCC is right now. It's not perfect, perfect, but the way it is right now, like, all the resources that they offer, like, from the advocacy and resource center, the food every Monday and Thursday that they give, and all the scholarship office, counseling center, career center, all those other resources. I feel like they're very useful and BMCC tries to make all your resources known to students. So, even if you don't attend all the events, you still kind of have an idea of what BMCC has to offer. And I really like that about the school. To improve, I would say that the students need to be more involved. You know, BMCC is having all these events, but most of the time the turn up is not that great. And to me, I don't know why, because the event is great. There's food, there's drinks, there's, like, a vibe there, but the students don't show up to the events and I think that's a bit of where we need to improve on. Like, how to create that accessible voice to students, how to market, basically, better. Yeah. Marketing better and also just, like, encouraging students to, like, get involved in their school just because it's a community school doesn't mean that there is no such thing as a student life. Just because it's a community school doesn't mean that you shouldn't be involved in student clubs. You know, a lot of people just think that, oh, I'm just here for, like, two years or so, I don't have to get involved. Yeah. Like, that's completely false. Like, you want to leave here with memories, you want to leave here with connections, you want to leave here with, like, great stuff that you can say happened because you were at BMCC. Yeah. Debbie points out an interesting correlation between the two-year college experience and effort in creating connections. She assumes that the stigma against community colleges leads students to take for granted their time at BMCC, which, in her perspective, offers great opportunities. To me, like, I remember, you know, watching this TikTok and the person was like, they were talking about winter and how sometimes we purposely cancel plans on winter because we hate the weather. But then that's half of our lives. Gone. Yeah, gone and not, yeah, and not putting effort into it or meeting people. Because, yeah, like, although grades and your jobs are important, but what's also super crucial, not just in college, like in this world, is to experience things and meet people, which I guess can help if you're a college student because it's networking. Yeah. Like, all of the jobs I have had is because I purposely told myself to meet people, go talk to people. And, yeah, I feel like I need to start also doing that myself because sometimes I can get into that, that lens of things where I'm like, no, I don't want to do it. But, like, sometimes you do, like, you need to meet people. Yeah, so this is some helpful advice. And the last question would be, if there's any advice that you can give to any incoming students or students considering BMCC, what's something that you would tell them? So my advice to incoming BMCC students, I think I had two, actually. First of all, this is, like, a main thing. People don't really know it most of the time. But as a student, I feel like you should know it. Never buy your textbooks before the class starts. That's like... Yeah, because you might drop it or swap. And sometimes the professor doesn't even need it. It's a whole lot. Yeah, because they already have it printed out for you. And they have it on the blackboard. And I spend so much money buying the textbooks. So never buy your textbooks before class starts. And the second one is always try to get involved in your school community. Even though you're shy, even though you feel like you don't have friends there, you're going to make friends when you go there. Just try and get involved, no matter which way you can get involved. Just, you know, try every semester, at least attend three events, or maybe three too much, make it two. But, you know, at least go to something every semester, you know? Yeah, awesome. Well, I think that's all for this episode. So I want to say thank you. Thanks for meeting with me again. Thank you for having me. In this interview, Debbie gave valuable advice, especially for students that are, for whatever reason, discouraged and not taking advantage of all the resources that BMCC offers. She also highlighted how important it is just to be present, talk to people, and not take for granted the opportunities. In two years, students can build valuable knowledge and connections. As a result, doors will open for them. It's just a matter of attitude. At the same time, she points out that BMCC needs to improve its communication strategies and create a more accessible voice for students. This episode is part of our podcast series about the challenges in creating a sense of belonging and community as a BMCC student. Thank you for listening to this interview, and please share your thoughts with us. You are also invited to share your experiences here. Your voice is important. I am Raquel Neres from the OpenEd team, and I will see you in the next episode of the Student Voices podcast.