Hi everyone :)! 

Welcome back to my life as a Stan State student! I am excited for this school year and I am taking it one semester at a time (because who knows where we’ll be these next few months). There is quite a lot going on and I feel blessed to have Stan State as my anchor through it all. 

While summer 2020 was eventful, Stan State’s presence in my life and in the Central Valley helped bring a refreshing sense of stability and safety. This summer it felt like everything around me was constantly changing. I tried my best to keep up with all the events that transpired this summer. I was left speechless numerous times as I read about everything as it became available, such as the elections, protests, wildfires, ongoing pandemic, and school closures. Needless to say, but my summer plans completely fell through and I didn’t do a lot of what I expected to. I didn’t expect to experience one of the biggest civil rights demonstrations ever this summer and I also wasn’t anticipating California declaring additional states of emergency. These are very intense times, but as I stated earlier, Stan State has been able to ground me through it all. I regularly looked for University emails and updates on all the latest events. This helped filter through a lot of the misleading media as Stan State was providing us with factual information and resources. This really made me rethink the role of universities in state and local communities; but that is a whole other conversation. 

My only expectations for fall 2020 are to stay on top of all my commitments (which I will be sharing soon) and academics. So far school has been going well, and once I make more sense of online/distance learning, I will elaborate :)! At this point though, it is going well and my professors are very supportive and eager to help us all and this has made me pretty optimistic.

Thank you all for checking in and joining me on this interesting ride we are calling Fall 2020!