Author Archives: Carlos

About Carlos

Freshman

Aviation Business Administration

**Age:** 18
**Hometown:** New York City, NY
**Favorite Movie:** The Aristocrats
**Favorite Band:** Dave Matthews Band, Ludacris, The Goo Goo Dolls
**Career Goal:** To own my own airline
**Interests:** Football, Softball, Politics and Government, Video Production

December 15, 2005

Posted on by

Hey Everyone,

This is the first time I am revising a journal entry after I have finished it because, I wanted to keep you up to date. I officially have finished my first full semester of college!!!!! I am really excited and I think I did really, really well. I already have gotten 5 of 6 grades back and although I have a few more “B’s” than I wanted, I am ultimately satisfied at the effort that I put in this semester and am looking forward to future semesters where I can build on this one.

Wow, where to start. It sure has been a hectic couples weeks on the Embry-Riddle campus. Ok, Rockin’ The Holidays was an exciting, fun completion of the semester for Task Force One. About 120 people came out to support us in our endeavor and the band was great, the food was great, and people really enjoyed the prizes which ranged from gift cards, to toys, to lava lamps and black lights. After all the hitches we encountered this semester, we really pulled together and I felt we were successful in what we were trying to do. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home during the Thanksgiving Break so I was unable to supply you with pictures.

On a sad note, my computer died in these past couple weeks. One of the many wires I had sticking out of it wrapped around my newly bought office chair and that proceeded to pull it really hard onto the floor of my dorm. If anything comes from this experience it is to support accidental damage warranties, of which I did not have. For those of us who live in the great state of New York and are planning to attend the Daytona Beach Campus, we are out of luck because Dell doesn’t offer said warranties in those two states due to insurance and legal reasons. So I look forward to Christmas and next semester where I can raise enough money for a new laptop. Until then, my current computer is enshrined in my room. I have to admit, I did cry quite a bit when I realized the extent of the damage. I don’t think my computer would want to live with a feeding tube, so I just let it go. (Ok, bad metaphor at this point in American history, but still funny.)

Anyways, I am about to make the long road trip journey home beginning Friday with one of my high school friends who attends the University of Tampa, so I am getting really excited and pumped for that fun. It will be about a 20 hr trip, but since I lack a drivers license, her father is flying down and helping us drive. I am preparing to get my drivers license, however, but I-95 is not my ideal first driving experience. I am one of the few people left on campus, and it is quite refreshing to have the room to myself and I am totally relaxed. Pretty soon I will be packed into Victoria ‘s Toyota for almost a day. (If traffic goes smoothly!)

I can only wish everyone reading this the happiest of holidays, and a great new year. For those seniors in high school who are 17, remember this is your last holiday season as a kid, so treasure it, because next year will be soooooo different. I will talk and get you updated on the new semester next year, I hope you will all come back and read this. Don’t forget about me.

Happy Holidays!

P.S. After January 1, 2006 download the FAFSA (your financial aid form) and send it to all the schools you are applying to! Embry-Riddle has an early filer’s grant which if you file early enough, you will earn. I received it, and you should too! Good Luck!

December 1, 2005

Posted on by

Hey Everyone!
This is my first entry from home, New York City and the last 9 days I’ve spent here have been fun, exciting and full of adventure. The five days I spent in Daytona after my last entry were normal and I spent some time trying to get everything settled work-wise before I left. I did miss two days of classes (which is not bright) but for the most part, my professors were ok with it, because I let them know in advance. That was one long week, however. Finally, I left Daytona for home.

I didn’t stay at home long, because the day after I went home, I went up to Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York to visit my friend Stefanie. Skidmore is a really beautiful campus, because as many of you may know, autumn in the northeast is a great sight to behold. Skidmore is more of a liberal arts school, so I was around the type of people I went to high school with, and that was comforting. Even though I love it here at Embry-Riddle, it still is a big difference because I am the only person from my high school to come here in my year.

Speaking of my high school, the day before Thanksgiving is traditionally alumni day. So I made the journey into Lower Manhattan to go see the friends and teachers that made high school so great for me. That was so much fun. I didn’t realized how much I missed everyone and I was so happy to see everyone. These people from Stuyvesant High School are going to be my friends for life so it is a big deal that we went about three months apart. The biggest thing though was, my high school friends read my journals, which surprised me, so the compliments I received for this really boosted my self-esteem. (Not that it needs any more boosts.)

I finally tied my last loose end of high school. I spent last year producing a DVD for my class’ yearbook, but unfortunately, all of them weren’t printed by June so we finally gave out a bulk of them to the class. I put a lot of work into it so finally getting to give them out was a huge relief.. Watching it with about 30 of my friends in a small living room on a 12 inch computer screen wasn’t too bad either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Thanksgiving Day, I went to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This was interesting because I haven’t been to the parade since I used to watch it from my Mother’s office when I was really young. The parade was amazing and worth standing in freezing temperatures for hours. There was one really cool band from Ohio, and although I do not remember their name, I loved the few minutes of seeing them pass.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, now I know everyone wants to know about the balloons because they are the most famous part of the parade. I had so much fun watching them float past because I absolutely love kiddy things. Things like Disney movies keep me young so I always am doing something fun and childish.

I had tons of fun on my vacation, but now, it is back to work. We only have a week and half of the semester left so it is time to finish everything up. I think I have had a great first semester and to ruin it by slacking off would be foolish. So the theme for the next 3 weeks will be, studying. Finals are fast approaching and I have to be ready for them.

Back to work,
Until next time,
Carlos

November 17, 2005

Posted on by

Hey Everyone!
Wow, the past two weeks have seen this campus abuzz with so much excitement. If there would be a theme for this entry, it would be activism. Activism can be so many things, but what it comes down to is that in order to accomplish your goals in life for yourself and for any group you may be part of is that you have to do something about it. Sitting around, gets absolutely nothing done. Get out, be active and let yourself be heard.

The reason I bring this up is because the past month has seen an issue develop on the campuses of Embry-Riddle. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s long term decisions are made by its Board of Trustees, which since the 1960s, has a student representative from each residential campus and a faculty representative from all three campuses. The BOT was recently given recommendations from an independent consultant to remove these votes and a committee proposed new bylaws without these representatives included. This caused much distress on campus, because no one wants to lose their representation on a board that makes decisions about them. Students banded together positively, organizing a massive campaign to let the BOT know that we do care about the long term future of the school and want to keep it a great school for the people who are here now, to the people reading this journal and also the people who will dream of attending Embry-Riddle twenty years from now.

This campaign included a mass petition which received almost 2,000 signatures and an all day rally which saw 1,600 students over the course of the day, of which some pictures are posted below.

The rally and the whole campaign were successful to a degree. This past Friday, the BOT voted to push back the vote on the new bylaws to the spring, citing more time needed to make such a decision.

On another SGA front, Task Force One is coming really well. Rockin’ the Holidays has hit a bunch of stumbling blocks, but these obstacles are teaching us how things work in the Student Government Association. Hopefully we can overcome these obstacles and put a good show. We are really working hard at this and we hope to become closer to the SGA in our relationships with the Student Representative Board, the Student Finance Board, and the Student Court. If you are at all interested in student government, next year Task Force one will be the place for you. You will be finding out much more about TFO in the months to come. This is what a TFO meeting might look like, just with less people than you should have next year (hopefully!)

On the school side of things, I have a LOT of work to do. Professors went project happy the last two weeks and I’ll be working until I leave Daytona on this Friday for home (yay!) and while I am home. Although I did know of these projects because I received a syllabus, you can’t really do the projects until you learn some skills in the class so you can’t really do them until the end of the semester. It’s a real catch-22 situation.

This past Friday I did absolutely the coolest thing of college so far. I attended the National Business Aviation Association 2005 convention in Orlando and had a blast. It was reported that approximately 30,000 people attended this convention centered around corporate aviation. Quite a few ERAU students attended and there was even an Embry-Riddle alumni booth. I saw a lot of new planes, met a lot of people that work for industries you take for granted and don’t realize their services are necessary for a plane to work, or look really nice. These kinds of things are important because networking is an important part of college, especially at a school like this. Once again, I’ve added some pictures from NBAA. The picture of me on the fake horse was just one of the many fun things that were at each booth.

So it’s time to bring this to a close. We have learned some things today, like get involved and do things that make you happy, but I think the prevalent piece of information is that I really like pictures. On that note, here’s one more of the people on my floor at our trip to Wing House, a restaurant here in Daytona Beach.

November 3, 2005

Posted on by

Hey Everyone,

Studying. That describes the last two weeks to every degree. I have been learning and studying like crazy for all my classes. I still have two tests this week. Tests in college are a lot different than high school, because even though the textbooks have units and chapters, professors assign the weirdest combination of chapters for a test. So you can be learning about the industrial revolution on one hand and India and the Middle East, its traditions, culture and history on the other. It’s weird but I have adapted as much as I can. School for me, has been much better than high school. I like learning specific things that will be helpful to me in a career. Sitting in classroom is fun for me.

Continuing on the academic side of things, I registered for my spring semester of classes! It was really great because since I am the treasurer of Task Force One, which is sponsored by the Student Government Association, I was allowed to pre-register for classes.. This allowed me to get all the classes I wanted before they filled up for the semester. I was really happy because my schedule is a lot like this semester, whereas my classes are in the morning and I have all afternoon to relax. I am taking 5 classes next semester, down from 6 this semester, but one of my classes this semester is 1 credit hour, which means the workload isn’t as extensive as my other classes, which are 3 credit hours. Next semester will be tough, I won’t lie, because I will have macroeconomics, managerial accounting, advanced computing, business statistics, and principles of aeronautical science. So there will be lots of work in my room next semester.

Well, I mentioned Task Force One, and I will give you the first public announcement of our fall event! On Friday, December 2, 2005, Task Force One presents… Rockin’ The Holidays! Now, I don’t expect you guys at home to come, but for the people already on campus who read my journal, there will be food and a concert, with a great local band, that I will name in my next journal entry (they have not yet been confirmed, but soon… definitely.) So come on out, though it made be geared toward first year students, everyone is more than welcome! We will have this, rain or shine! (In case of rain, it will be moved indoors.)

Speaking of rain… last week we had quite a lot. Hurricane Wilma blew over Florida, and we Riddle students waited and waited all weekend for the administration to give us the news that we all wanted to hear. Sunday came and passed, and then at 7 am Monday morning I was rudely awoken by some news I normally never hear until winter. Classes canceled. Yay! What a relaxing day Monday was. Of course now that I am in Florida, I’ll never get a snow day so one hurricane day felt good.

The week was also shortened on the other end because Friday was university day, which kicked off homecoming weekend ’05. The highlight of the weekend for myself was seeing the host of “Mind Of Mencia” on Comedy Central, Carlos Mencia perform live in the ICI center. He was hilarious. I loved his ability to teach and entertain at the same time. He also signed autographs for any person who wanted one after the show, so when I met him, he was really nice. He really earned the respect of many people, young and older and I really appreciated him coming to Embry-Riddle.

Well, I’m sure you’re pretty excited about high school years and your college years to come and I hope that my journals have given you something to look forward to, should you arrive in Daytona Beach one August or January afternoon.

With Hope for You,
Carlos

P.S. The young man from Spruce Creek High School, who emailed me, please email me back because I mistakenly deleted your email. Thanks.

October 20, 2005

Posted on by

Hello everybody,

The past two weeks have been full of excitement, anguish and new experiences. The best and worst parts of college have shown their faces to me. All I can do is take it in stride because there is no way to avoid these things.

There is one big disadvantage to having 60 people live on one floor. If one person gets sick, it just spreads around. I currently have a really bad cold, and it’s the third time I’ve been sick since arriving in August. This is nothing compared to the weekend I had last week. One of my friends caught scarlet fever, which surprised us all, but a couple of us took him to the hospital and within a few days he recovered. It definitely is hard being sick for the first time with no real parental figure in your life because you now have to seek health care for yourself. We have a health clinic right in the center of campus, so it is not too far but they aren’t open 24 hours so the occasional trip to the hospital a block and a half away may be necessary. Overall, people are typically healthy and going about their daily activities.

My biggest news from this past week is that I spent the week at our Student Government Association fall retreat. Although we retreated to the ICI center, (our athletic center) which is only a block from where I live, it was full of fun and learning how to be a successful leader. I was one of four first-year students there being that the only way first year students can get involved in the SGA is through Task Force One, which you should all get information about if you are accepted. The retreat was an amazing experience, though it did involve a short night on the hard gymnasium floor. It culminated with a trip to Orlando for dinner and a show Saturday night. I was really grateful the SGA invited the executive board of TFO to the retreat, because they didn’t have to and I think we really benefited as a group from the things we learned.

On the fraternity front, unfortunately I had to withdraw from pledging Pi Kappa Alpha for financial reasons. In college you need to prioritize how you spend your money, and I chose to be able to fly home for Thanksgiving. I feel appreciative to the brothers of Pike for giving me the opportunity to try and join them and in a heartbeat I would attempt to pledge again if the situation ever became right.

School is getting tough. It’s that blunt. I am fighting the urge to lose focus and not go to class, because it is setting in now that no one is forcing me to. I make it to almost all of my classes every day and I am working on making that 100% attendance. These days, I have several papers and presentations I am working on so that does take a little more time than homework was taking in the beginning of the semester.

The moral for these two weeks is that Embry-Riddle is a BUSY place to be. But without chaos and lots of things to do, I’d be very, very bored. So a hectic life makes me happy.

I am going to lie back down now, because I am still not feeling that well, so I hope you all stay healthy and keep your grades up.

Until next time,
Carlos

October 5, 2005

Posted on by

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

September 22, 2005

Posted on by

Hey all you journal readers, I cannot begin to explain how exciting this is for me. Less than a year ago I was in your position. Sitting at home on my computer reading about people who were living the life I wanted, down in Daytona Beach, learning to fly, making new friends in a new environment. Now I am here, meeting some of the people who I read so much about and felt like I knew, although they didn’t know me. One journal writer from last year is my resident advisor; another is my peer mentor in my College Skills class, BA 101. I know how much these journal entries meant to me last year so I will do my best to make it meaningful for all of you.

Well, now that the formalities are out of the way, HI!!! My name is Carlos; I’m 18 and a freshman here at ERAU. Yes, I know it says that on top, but I like you to hear it from me. The first thing I can tell you about ERAU is that it was a HUGE culture shock for me when I arrived. I live in the biggest city in this country, where everything is packed together, large building everywhere. Landing in Orlando, all I saw was grass, trees, water and houses. Here in Daytona, that gets multiplied. There are wide open spaces, fountains everywhere, wide roads. It took me a while to get used to that. Another thing that I had to get used to was that in New York City, there are so many things to do. Here, you have the movies, a club, and the beach. Everything fun takes place in an area called Beachside, about 10 minutes from school over a bridge.

The first week here was the most exciting time in my life. I got to move into my new ‘apartment’ also known as a dorm room. I met new people from all over the world. I really got into the college spirit. It felt like summer camp for the first week, because we didn’t have classes. We played games that you would find in a camp setting. We learned the rules and our new structure. Then the weekend before classes started, a new feeling set in. I was on my own. There was no one to force me to go to bed, to come home at a certain time. I think this is the most dangerous feeling one can experience. Don’t fall into the trap to go crazy. I went out to parties but I didn’t go crazy with it. Responsibility is a big part of being ‘grown’ and it should not be taken lightly.

Classes started August 29th, which is another adjustment, because school in NYC doesn’t start until after Labor Day, so looking at the calendar while I was doing schoolwork was very different. My classes are very cool, because for once I am not doing the general education things I did in high school, now classes are more concentrated. My classes are BA 101, Intro to Management (BA 201) Accounting (BA 210) Business Calculus (MA 220) Intro to Computers (IT 109) and World History (SS 110). Some of my classes are really challenging, but others are things I already know, but I cannot prove to the school that I know it without taking the class. The moral of the story is TAKE AS MANY AP’s AS YOU CAN! If you are a senior now in AP classes and decide not to focus after you get accepted to college and to skip on taking an AP, think again. It will save you so much money in the long run if you earn the credits now. And you can get a boatload of credits by doing just that.

Time to move on to, in my opinion, one of the coolest things in college. Dorm life is interesting, fun and exciting. Living with a complete stranger is a completely different thing than anything in life. I live in Adams Hall, one of the newer dormitories in the student village. I have one roommate and the living is tight. In Adams, I live in the Penthouse (5th floor). It is absolutely the coolest floor in the whole school. We go crazy here, with respect to the rules of course. Our resident advisors are cool, it is different for us because we have two, Marquitta and Kristina, who is an Associate R.A. Their main job is to keep us safe, and respecting that is important. They are not your parents, they give you all the freedom you want and all the help you want. It is a very, very cool experience.

When I’m not in my room, I am getting involved in school. This is very important to me because I was very involved in the activities of my high school. So far, I have joined EaglesFM, our campus radio station. (You can listen on the web @ EaglesFM.com.) This is very cool because eventually I will have my own show and be able to talk about what I want to talk about and play the music I like and share that with the other students here at Embry-Riddle. I also plan on getting involved in our freshman government, Task Force One, whose first meeting is actually tomorrow. The biggest thing I have decided to do is pledge a fraternity. This was a big decision for me because I was not sure if I would pledge this or next semester being that I wanted to be settled into the college environment. After talking to the brothers at Pi Kappa Alpha I felt that my studies would not suffer because of the fraternity involvement. So if I am offered a bid to pledge in this coming week, I plan on accepting it. I will keep you updated on my student involvements throughout the year.

Before I end my first journal entry, I would like to tell you about your high school years. Don’t take them for granted, don’t wish to grow up quickly. No matter what your situation is and believe me, I do know about tough situations, make the best of it. Enjoy your childhood; your adult years will come soon enough. Be responsible, you do know right from wrong. You are an amazing person in your own way. You don’t need to change yourself to please others. Be yourself and make sure you focus on your education. If your studies suffer, you can’t get to be what you want to be, here at Riddle. So work hard, and then play hard.

You’ll be hearing a lot more from me soon.
Good Luck in your school year,
Carlos