Have Your Say: At CCSF, What’s Helping? And What’s Holding You Back?

Adonai Tierrablanca, Administration of Justice Major

This is the school where I got my first job. I work at the African American Resource Center, and we try to do a lot there for African American students. We try to give them books and food, and point them in the right direction to get scholarships. So that's one thing I really appreciate, is that CCSF is very inclusive.

And a lot of the teachers here give you good advice on how to manage college, like one of my history professors, who said that when they were college students, they took 15 credits while working a part-time job, and they couldn't do it. They got C's and were threatened with getting kicked out, but they managed to get out of that problem by cutting a few classes. So, what we really need to be careful with is managing credits if we have a part-time job, which I feel is really good advice for many students.

The only issue I think CCSF has is that the programs aren't heavily advertised. And I feel like if they spread the message through more avenues, then it would be able to reach out to more students.

Dejon Chopin, Psychology Major

There are so many resources that we have that can help you. Either with living in the city, academic goal setting, financial issues, food issues – things like that.

And I feel like what's really holding me back is just outside of school things, just what is happening in our country. We have ICE obviously terrorizing our communities, the threat of fascism nationally, and with the rent crisis going on, it’s become very hard to afford to live right now.

Karuna Chou, CCSF Alumni 2021, currently studying Game and Entertainment Design in Los Angeles

I would say something that really helped me in my educational journey was utilizing the resources that CCSF offers. A lot of free resources, and a lot of people here who were available and willing to help me on my educational journey, wanted to see my growth and progress. 

Something that sort of held me back was, I think, my perception of the leap from high school to college, because I tested out of high school when I was 15, and I didn't get my junior or senior year to prepare for college. So I think if I had more support on that front, and I had learned how to study, or learned how to manage my time, I think that would have really helped me. 

I feel like City College really did help once I started realizing where to find the resources and actually actively seeking help. Realizing that seeking help wasn't something that was shameful or bad, because the resources are there for a reason.

Marcian Diamond, Web Application Programming student

What's going really well for me is having a good foundation, faith and recovery. And my faith is Islam, so I have a foundation in prayer. Because in my old life, I studied at San Francisco State University, but didn't have a foundation in anything, and I graduated, but had nervous breakdowns and ended up in the streets, ended up in jail, but now I have a good foundation. And what else is going well? Taking judo classes.

Not really much holding me back. I just try to do my best. There will always be distractions.

Jason, Business Major

Well, I do a lot of things in the library. Pretty much the only thing holding me back is time constraints, in the sense that I have other stuff to do here and there, so I'm always trying to manage my time better.