Hey Guys and Gals,

First of all, let me say that this experience has been very excellent for me so far. I’ve gotten really positive feedback from my first entry and I just wanted to say thank you to all those who have complimented me and I will try to keep my journals as informative as my first one.

These past two weeks have been really busy, because school is really heating up! So much has happened and I cannot wait to tell you all about it. I will begin with my classes. All of my classes have been really starting to get harder. The workload has picked up, which just means I have less time to play around and I spend a lot more time typing on my computer or writing pages and pages of math problems. In the past two weeks, I have gotten tests in all my classes. I did reasonably well on all of them, and I know this because here, my professors have all given back the tests in the very next class. This amazed me and I think it is great that we have professors and graduate assistants who work so hard to assess our performance in such a short time. Being at a small school definitely does have its advantages. Not only do your professors have fewer papers to grade, but you can really get to know them. I have had conversations with all my professors and actually have a friendly relationship with a couple. It is a really cool thing when you walk across the lobby of the Student Village and see your Information Technology teacher and he offers help for you in your management class. Embry-Riddle is definitely an upbeat, friendly environment and I am beginning to love it here. People are just so nice.

Another thing that has been going on in class has been term project assignments.. Some are group projects, and that has been tough for me because not everyone has the same free schedule slots because here, not everyone finishes class at the same time. It is unfortunate, but we have made it work. You just have to constantly remind people of the meeting times and places, and believe me, people are way busy and get things confused. You can tell a person a half hour before about a meeting, and they’ll be nowhere close to the meeting place when the meeting starts. Scheduling work, fun, and other activities around classes is a new skill I have attained here in my first month.

My other activities have also been getting more time consuming. For those of you wondering, I did choose to rush Pi Kappa Alpha and am now a pledge of the fraternity. It is exciting and trying at the same time, but then again, learning the history and traditions of an organization that has been around since 1868 is never going to be easy. I am working really hard at it and I will most definitely keep you updated on the pledge process.

My most exciting news from the past two weeks (Yes, I kept you waiting) is that I have been elected treasurer of Task Force One, the First Year Student council organization under the Student Government Association. The elections process was pretty exciting for me and I will do my best to work hard to make TFO a successful organization this year. I was really excited when I was told by last year’s TFO president, Megan Grow and current SGA president Sara McCook of my win in the election. Tomorrow is our first meeting where I go in as an executive council member so it should be pretty exciting.

I have received a couple emails at willicdb@erau.edu asking about me as a person so I have decided to tell you a little bio of myself in every entry. I am from New York City, as you can see up top. I live in Brooklyn, one of the five boroughs and by far the best one. I attended Stuyvesant High School in lower Manhattan for the past four years, and for those of you who know it, you know it’s not the easiest four years of one’s life. But I survived the workload, the late nights, the early morning subway rides to school and now I am only a 3 minute bike ride from class. I played football for Stuyvesant, and like the 1,000 other high school football players here at Riddle, have retired from full contact football and will now play flag football. I miss New York a lot, it’s a lot busier than Daytona and I am still adjusting to the quietness and humidity that is Florida. So that is the first look into the life that is Carlos and I hope that will keep you on the edge of your seat for more in a couple weeks.

For those of you applying early to schools, good luck with that, because as you know, application deadlines are getting ever nearer. One thing you don’t have to worry about is an essay for ERAU, because last year, I wasn’t required to write one, although I do not know if it is the same for this year. But good luck with the whole college applications process, I know it can be strenuous.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’m off to bed now so I will catch you in a couple weeks. Keep posting questions to the discussion board and tell your friends about the journals. If you could even let your school’s college advisor know that Embry-Riddle does this, that would be excellent!

Until Next Time,
Carlos