Undergraduate / Pitzer Transfer - music & academics [2]

This is my first draft, so I know there's a lot of work to do. So any and every critique will help, thank youuu

Pitzer's core values

At Pitzer College, five core values distinguish our approach to education: social responsibility, intercultural understanding, interdisciplinary learning, student engagement, and environmental sustainability. As agents of change, our students utilize these values to create solutions to our world's challenges. Reflecting on your involvement in school or within the community, how have you engaged with one or more of Pitzer's core values?

Thirty people in black polos are spread out in the school gym setting up for our biggest rally of the year. In one corner, one person's questioning another if she's printed out the certificates of achievement. The girl replied no, and with horrified looks on their faces, both sprinted for the computer lab. In another corner, three people are wrestling with a poster of someone's name. They're yelling at the tape and scolding it for succumbing to gravity. I myself am searching for the hosts, my anxiety slowly building every second I can't find them. These are the hectic situations happening minutes before the academic rally. We quickly make last-minute touches to the decorations and review everyone on the schedule of the rally's proceedings. When 11:22 hits, the doors open and allow 500 students to slowly trickle into the gym, ready for the academic rally.

I was drawn to the values of the Student Achievement class, which is reflected in the name, striving for academic and personal achievement. While the Associated Student Body focused on events that the whole student body can participate in, Student Achievement aim to make a difference in individual lives. We hoped to create a domino effect by making an impact on someone, who hopefully makes an impact on someone else, and so on.

I was only in the class for a year when I was appointed to be one of the four council members in the student achievement class. Fresh with activities and ideas, I was eager to begin the year and encourage everyone to perform acts of kindness and get involved in their academics. The council was in charge of directing the academic rally, whose goal is to motivate students to do their best in school and give them an outlet for academic successes. One way we did this was by giving out free celebratory t-shirts that corresponded to their GPA. Some students received gold and red t-shirts for grade point averages of 4.0+ and 3.0+, while others got white ones for GPAs that improved between the last two semesters. Even though these students didn't earn the highest of GPAs, we wanted to recognize their hard work in applying themselves in class and improving their GPA. We further wanted to congratulate them on their achievements by announcing their names and presenting them with medals during the rally.The smiles on the people's faces who were surprised and glad to receive a recognition were so uplifting, and [it felt good] that someone knew we appreciated them.

We also incorporated a prominent artist in mainstream culture to [pump up] people for the academic rally and their grades. Drake, a rapper, had an album to be released the month after the rally and we used this excitement to excite students for the rally as well. We designed the t-shirt based on his 2009 album "So Far Gone". Instead of the album title, however, it read "We Have Gone So Far An Etiwanda Presentation", which illustrates the advances our school has made academically and in showing kindness. Every day, I notice more and more students who are not only proud of the GPA their shirt represents, but also enjoy teaching others who may be struggling where they are succeeding. I feel that the student achievement class has a duty to recognize each and every individual based on their own talents and skills and abilities, not to label them based on their statistics, such as GPA or school ranking.

My time as a student leader and getting involved in the culture of my school really shaped my time as an upperclassman who other students look up to. Experiences like this taught me to recognize everyone's efforts, whether big or small. If given the opportunity, I would use my experience from this class and apply it to my time at Pitzer to be an agent of change.