By Kate Wallace
Tania Ambriz may be taking it slowly with her classes, but her time at SCTCC has been anything but slow. As a first-generation college student and the first in her family to pursue education after high school, she’s making sure she gets the full college experience.
When she was in her ESL classes at Melrose High School, the group came to visit SCTCC for a tour.
“I was just kind of scoping around the main lobby and I saw a pamphlet for the Spanish Transfer Pathway,” Ambriz explained. Then she met Vicky Kapitzke, one of the Spanish instructors, and that sealed the deal. “She just seemed really, really awesome, really nice.”
Ambriz decided to start the foundation for a bachelor’s degree in Spanish here at SCTCC and then will transfer to SCSU with a career goal of being an interpreter in a hospital. But she’s in no rush.
“I can focus on those two classes and not have a jumbo pile of homework. So I have a little bit more time to spend with family, friends, and whatever pops up.”
And things do pop up! While Ambriz didn’t connect with many people her first semester, by her second semester here, she had found her place. She worked at the Multicultural Center last year and helped with many of their events, including last year’s Multicultural Night.
This year she’s working at TRIO Student Support Services and is there almost every day. On top of that, she’s also a club founder. With the support of her instructor Kapitzke, she started the LatinX Club.
While the club is relatively new, they are working to get people to attend events and become members.
“Anyone can join,” pitched Ambriz. “You don’t have to be Latino, Latina. You can come show your support as an ally.”
Allies are definitely a big part of her life. Since she was the first person in her family to go to college, and her parents didn’t have education past middle school, Ambriz needed some guidance. While her family was really excited for her to go to college, she ended up getting help with the SCTCC application from her guidance counselor in high school. After that, she came to SCTCC to get assistance with the rest of the process.
“I always recommend to come in and just ask for help. I didn’t know where to fill out the FAFSA or where to fill out the application for college. My guidance counselor and I filled out the application together and William in TRIO helped me fill out the FAFSA,” Ambriz explained.
Her other advice for anyone thinking about SCTCC is to try a couple classes for a semester. While she didn’t meet a lot of people right away, after her first semester she settled into the routine of classes and started meeting more and more people. Now she’s “pretty spread out all over campus.”
And the best way to stay involved in clubs and events around campus is for her to take her classes slow. She’s enjoying her classes this semester and is open to changing her plan at any time.
“It’s going to take me a little while to graduate, but we’ll see where it takes me,” Ambriz said. This is good news for SCTCC – the longer she’s at the college, the more involved she’ll be!