Leonard-Spencer Akwanga Jr

There was a lot of good quality information in this information session such as:
The Winter and Spring Semester have a combined funding of 1000 dollars.
Purchases are better made in store and make your purchases as early as possible.
February 7th is the deadline for Spring bookstore purchases.
Where to find Finacial Aid and Billing Support.
The FAFSA for the next academic year is open now and will be closed March 1st.
Emails should be checked daily.
Give Pulse hours are due today at 11:59pm.
The program is offering 5 mini-scholarship meetings, and you are required to attend 2 out of the 5.
You are required to visit academic advisors as a part of the program.
The required refresh meeting is held on January 14th at 11:30-12:30pm and the January 15th meeting is 4:30pm-5:30pm.

The information provided in the meeting was very helpful and useful.

I went to a Canvas overview two days agos. Although I know a fair bit about Canvas and how it works since I used it all throughout high school there are still some features I don't fully understand and tricks I don't fully get. One example is accessing canvas, usually I just keep my classes Canvas up, and when I get logged out I log back in, so sometimes I forget how to actually access Canvas. From the meeting I learned that I get access canvas from the official PGCC website page and also from the canvas personal page through the Canvas widget.

The purpose of the study aboard program is in order to broaden your horizons by experiencing and documenting your experience in a foreign country. By adapting to the culture, you can network, build your resume, have a higher chance of maintaining job security, have a higher chance of getting a higher salary, and overall, just gain more experience in life. Maybe because I have been to foreign countries before, but I don't particularly find the study abroad experience to be overly appealing to me. The experience of travel in my life has overall been pretty impactful but also at times been inconvenient.

This study abroad program seems more like the latter, while I think that this program can offer a lot by learning firsthand of the culture of a foreign country on the ground. In terms of a travel experience I know that I wouldn't enjoy it, particularly the room and board. You have to pay for your own room (which money in general is another reason why I am not specifically interested.). If not, you will have a communal room which will be very strange to me.

I attended the U-Rise interest meeting a couple of weeks ago. The goal of the program is to promote active applications of medicine and science in order to impact as many lives as possible.

The requirements of the program were:
Be a United States Citizen
Be a Stem major
By the end of May 2025, you need 60 college credits
A cumulative GPA of 3.2
Plan to pursue a PHD in STEM or Biomedical research
Students will agree 8-10 hours per week of research at UMBC
Take 12 academic credits per semester
You must live on campus
Agree not to work outside of research with school funding
Participate in program sponsored events, advising, coaching, professional development, networking, and grad school preparations.
As well as being required to present a research symposium.

I find the program to be interesting but overall, I am not going to apply to this program for multiple reasons. For one I don't meet the requirements as I will not have 60 college credits by the end of May 2025. I am not sure that I want a career in STEM/Biomedicine, so joining a program that require me to do a PHD level of work for something I may or may not want to pursue seems illogical.

During this game I started understanding what was happening a little bit more. For example each team only gets 30 seconds of offensive, and when the ball changes hands the timer restarts. Meaning that you have to make your offensive plays extremely quickly or waste using your chance to attack. Although it's just 30 seconds, when the game is active those 30 seconds can feel like a long time. Then there's the total time of 20 minutes, which isn't that long of a time but with things like fouls, the ball going out of bounds, match breaks, etc, those 20 minutes can last quite a while. One thing I noticed that was different about the men's basketball game is that both teams really were fighting over the ball. The girls in their game would ocassionally fall down throughout the match, but compared to the men's game, they were falling over, falling through the air, crashing into each other, etc. The final score was 89 to pgcc and 55 to the other team, and despite both scores being the same. It felt like a more competivie game in the beinging half, and then overtime PGCC slowly took the lead.

The basketball game was interesting, I arrived a little bit late and I don't know much about basketball or sports in general so I was a little bit lost. But it was fairyl simple to follow. PGCC won the game I believe the score was 89 to 55, it was for a majortity of the game kind of a stomp, our team seemed to have better syngery then the opposition. On top of that it looked like a few of the members on the other team had leg braces, seeming like they were injuried and on topic of that they had no one on the bench either. On the other hand there were some benched players on our side so even when one of the team memebers felll down and seemed seriously hurt, it really wasn't that devastating to the match. It didn't really feel like a close game at all.

I feel like I learned some pretty interesting facts like 60 percent of the government budget in Maryland going to education, even though at times especially in my old highschool it doesn't feel like. I learned some more about what it's like to be a state delegate, like how they get 90 days in Annapolis to sort through voting on bills, getting meetings, etc. That they're also allowed to work part time jobs for the other 9-months in which they aren't working in Annapolis.

The most impactful part of the meeting for me was story when Ashanti Matrinez was reached out to by his community about disability issues. While I forget the exact term used, I know that it was people who have bodily disabilities like missing legs or arms, and they wish to particptate in activies such as swimming/running getting prohestics for those activies wouldn't be covered by insurance. So he lobbied for a bill to be passed that at least I believe 3 times a year insurance companies have to cover the expenses for these instances.

Overall, the meeting made me feel more secure about the country.

I am note sure if this properly went through the first time, so I redid it again.

I feel like I learned some pretty interesting facts like 60 percent of the government budget in Maryland going to education, even though at times especially in my old highschool it doesn't feel like. I learned some more about what it's like to be a state delegate, like how they get 90 days in Annapolis to sort through voting on bills, getting meetings, etc. That they're also allowed to work part time jobs for the other 9-months in which they aren't working in Annapolis.

The most impactful part of the meeting for me was story when Ashanti Matrinez was reached out to by his community about disability issues. While I forget the exact term used, I know that it was people who have bodily disabilities like missing legs or arms, and they wish to particptate in activies such as swimming/running getting prohestics for those activies wouldn't be covered by insurance. So he lobbied for a bill to be passed that at least I believe 3 times a year insurance companies have to cover the expenses for these instances.

Overall, the meeting made me feel more secure about the country.