SWC News Center

From Lost to Connected: My Journey to Finding Community at SWC

By: Christian Uy - December 16, 2024

My name is Christian Uy, I am a Nursing student studying at Southwestern College (SWC), a part of the Sangam Learning Community and taking Asian American Media & Film with Professor Joseph Allen Ruanto-Ramirez. I am a resident of San Diego. I was given this opportunity to write this opinion editorial as a class requirement. 

High School Graduation– a big day for many but also a new beginning. Many students prepare to go to their dream school away from home, move into their dorms, make new friends, and explore the city where their school is established. However, for me, that was not the case. I stayed local and decided to attend SWC.

As a low-income student, I made this decision because I wanted to save money on tuition. At that time, I believed that community college (CC) was a great choice for slow-paced students who have not decided on their major. This would allow students time to learn and decide, while taking general education courses. 

On the contrary, there is a stigma on CC that revolves around the “college experience”. This refers to the idea that attending a CC means you would be missing out on community events, campus life/culture and independence. For instance, in my first year at SWC, I found myself lost. I barely had any friends who I could reach out to for help, the learning curve was at a faster pace, and unlike high school, I found that college does not hold your hand. As such, I found it was much harder to create and maintain new friendships because the age demographic was diverse. This made it difficult to relate to the students around me, thus making it even harder to make new friends overall. Despite this, I was still able to make a couple of friends in my first year. 

School was challenging when I did not have a community to go to for support. I felt an even greater sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) seeing my friends' 4-Year University experiences (i.e. dorm life, social events, etc...). As a result, I felt lost, despite doing well in my academics. I began feeling conflicted about my decision to attend CC instead of a University. I no longer looked forward to attending my classes nor staying on campus. That’s when I knew that I wanted to feel connected to my college, not wanting a boring college experience. 

Luckily, my second year differed from my first year. I heard news of a new learning community that was coming to fruition, “Sangam”. In hopes of satisfying my need for community and new experiences, I decided to join. Sangam was able to provide me with services that I was never informed on in my first semester. These services included: field trips, priority counseling, priority enrollment, and professional development.

Overall, these services opened my eyes to more career paths and helped me develop confidence in finalizing my career in nursing. The opportunity to participate in professional development and having priority counseling helped my journey in self-discovery and choosing my career path towards the Associates Degree in Nursing (ADN) program at SWC.  

I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to join. I was able to build new friendships, feel more engaged in my academics, and look forward to staying and attending SWC. Overall, I finally found a sense of belonging and community that I was not able to during my first year. 

Given my experience, I have encountered others who felt similarly—one of these students is Nina Icasiano, an SWC student in Sangam explained, “[I]f I did not join Sangam, I still would have gone to school like normal just with the same routine as last semester– where all I did was go to school and then go home. I wouldn’t have any motivation to go to school because before last semester, I only made one friend… so I am glad that I have a support system and more friends in college upon joining Sangam.”

To wrap things up, I believe that community is very important in life as a whole. Without this sense of community, it would be much harder to feel engaged in attending college, as well as create new friendships. I am truly grateful to have encountered this supportive community and I sincerely hope this community continues to expand, welcoming others, who are in search of belonging.