Hello dear professor, my name is Andrey cortez. I was born and raised in Ecuador where I spent my entire childhood. It’s been six years since I moved to The United States of America and I am grateful to this country because since we have been living here this country has helped us a lot during all these years. The moment my family and I arrive here, things haven’t been easy at all. I had a lot of trouble learning the language and it took me many years to master it but I am pretty sure there’s things to improve. Learning a second language is not easy but I tried to inspire myself to never put my hands down. 

   When I was in middle school I never thought of going to college. However, when I graduated from middle school and it was finally time to move onto high school my whole perspective changed for good. In high school there were people who would advise us that going to college will be beneficial for our future since nowadays people struggle to find a job but having a degree will allow you to find a job easier. The reason I am attending college is because of my parents. My mom once told me that would love to own her own house and hopefully one day I can fulfill her dream with my future job.

   The main point of my experience is that I faced some challenges such as adapting to a whole different culture, learning a language that is not my native one, and getting used to the school system was hard too because I didn’t know how everything worked. At the end of the day I remained determined to never give up.

www.linkedin.com/in/andrey-cortez-4a3025292

This semester has been great in terms of getting used to college and learning. The professor that I’ve assigned for this semester made it easier for me and my classmates to get used to her class. One thing I like about her is that on the first day of the semester she told the class to show respect to our classmates and I am glad she said it because now I felt like I belonged there. The second week of the semester we already began to work and our first assignment was to complete a brainstorm worksheet which consisted of listing different events that had occurred at CCNY and choosing one of  those events in order to develop a news feature later in the semester. When we had to start writing our news feature I remember that I was struggling a lot since at the beginning I didn’t know what to write about but when I finally chose a topic the stress started coming in. I was feeling stressed because it was hard to find sources of information regarding my topic for the reason that my topic was an old event. However, I never put my head down and that led me to find great sources that were so helpful throughout the process of my news feature. 

       The extent to which I have achieved the learning outcomes this semester is really good because the first draft of my news feature wasn’t as great as the final draft since in the first draft there was lack of details that I needed to include and that’s because I was repeating information for the reason that I didn’t know what else to write. Then, in my second draft I was able to add more depth details which led me to get a good grade. Unfortunately, I was not able to get my primary source which was to interview someone who has information regarding my topic. To prove this information I will put a picture of my first draft and a picture of the final result.

This is the first draft and I honestly think there’s a lack of information because when we did peer review in class, my classmate said that I over-explained some things. 

This is the final draft, I changed a lot of things starting from the introduction, as well as the first paragraph. Thanks to the feedback I received, my news feature went from having a lack of information to having deeper details. These two pictures show the progression I have made throughout the news feature.

    Furthermore, throughout this semester I learned the importance of re-reading, drafting, revising and editing. It’s important for students to follow all these steps before submitting their work because they have to make sure they include everything the professor asked you. I also learned to fix common errors such as grammar, how to cite sources, misspelling, etc. Our class also did peer review and it was very important to me because my classmates gave me ideas on how to make my news feature better and peer review was required before submitting our newsfeature. 

   Practicing systematic application of citation conventions during college is something important to learn because you want to make sure you cite information from someone else’s work so you don’t get accused. Citing information from someone else’s work shows that you did your research and your professor will notice that because they can detect when a student plagiarized. Plagiarism can get you out of college because it’s illegal and it shows that you only have intentions of copying from someone else’s work instead of doing your own work.  

      This class taught me how to use rhetorical strategies to make my writing look stronger. Rhetorical strategies help students understand my writing a lot better. I am still learning how to use these strategies because sometimes I get confused when I have to appeal to ethos, pathos, or logos. However, I know that If I keep practicing how to use these strategies, I know that I’ll get better because there’s a saying that says “practice makes better”. 

The first day of the semester was hard for me because I did not know how to find my classes, finding academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles. When I found out that our college was offering a library’s databases to its students I started to see things differently because it became a lot easier to find sources of information and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. I used the library’s databases one time because I was having trouble finding information regarding my topic since I wanted to talk about an event that happened centuries ago. Therefore, Having that tool is very useful for us students because it could lead us to find non-recent information.

 

^{In recent decades, City College has become a diverse school which means that your race or color doesn’t matter anymore, everyone is treated equally. In 1969, there was not much diversity at City College and the statistics show that there weren’t a lot of African Americans and Puerto Ricans at CCNY. Non-white people didn’t deserve to experience all that because all they wanted was to receive education and equal rights. Although everything has changed in these years, I think this event will never be forgotten and it will remain in the history of the United States to bring awareness of how badly they were treated and never repeat this behavior towards them.}  

^{Now That I became a City College student, I understand why people and different sources such as “The Wall Street Journal” consider CCNY#8 nationally for diversity. Also, I noticed on campus that students have respect for each other because all races get along well. This is great because not only does it show that the values have changed at City College but also demonstrates that the 1969 protest by African Americans and Puerto Ricans served to gain more recognition and respect. Additionally, when the freshmen convocation happened, I got the opportunity to look at my surroundings and noticed that everyone was invited to this event, which proves that CCNY is very diverse and now they don’t exclude anyone from important events.}

^{However, things were not like what we are used to today. Unfortunately, African Americans and Puerto Ricans did not have the same benefits as white people did because the few non white people that had the chance to study at CCNY were not required to go to orientation. This situation led them to feel discouraged, abandoned, and left out.  The Harvard Crimson published an article ( July 22, 1969) called “ What was behind the CCNY takeover?” By Paul R. Simms and Simms stated, “ On strike for the ‘5 Demands’–shut it down”. And then the Administration responded–“Get those Blacks off our land. We don’t have to pay attention to them. “We’ll negotiate with them to keep them quiet; then, we’ll reject it all and tell them we tried.” This quote demonstrates that President Gallager did not have any intention of negotiating with African Americans and Puerto Ricans because of the demands they were claiming and one of them was “ A separate freshman orientation for Black and Puerto Rican students.” This proves that Black people did not have enough tools to get used to the college environment and they had to figure everything out by themselves.}

^{All of this negative behavior towards them led them to feeling tired of being discriminated against and not being given enough rights, the people of color and Puerto Ricans decided to stand up to work on something that would reverse their situation. So, they came up with five demands.  The better Angels society published an article called “The five demands”, stating that The five demands are “1- A school of black and Puerto Ricans Studies. 2- A separate orientation program for black and Puerto Ricans. 3- SEEKS students having a determining voice for guidelines of the SEEK Program. 4- The racial composition of the freshman class to reflect the Black and Puerto Rican population in all New York’s High Schools. 5- All education majors must be required to take Black and Puerto Rican History and the Spanish language” These five demands were created with the purpose to gain more students and leadership once they were enrolled. Also, as they submitted the five demands they were protesting at the same time around the CCNY campus as a way to pressure the president to take action. Due to all these issues, President Gallager felt pressured to sit down and negotiate with the students. After the meeting between students and President concluded, the president’s responses did not satisfy some students and their dissatisfaction led them to take over the CCNY campus for two weeks. CUNY.EDU published an article called “Student protest and take over of 1969” , and it states that “ In a meeting with students in April, President Gallager reported that a year or Spanish would be required for education majors as of September 1969, and courses in Black and Puerto Ricans Heritage would be incorporated into the offerings of the school education. Even with these developments, student dissatisfaction continued, culminating on April 22 when the Black and Puerto Rican student community took over the South campus for two weeks, preventing students from attending classes held there.” This quote  shows the anger of the students because they believed that the president’s conditions were not enough but they knew that finally they were getting some attention and it was the beginning of something great.}

^{Due to all this controversy and the anger of the students, open admissions was created with the purpose to calm things down and also to satisfy students. Open admissions seemed to be the resolution for the student strikes even though that was not something they were asking for, but at least things were changing for better. Open admissions didn’t just bring more opportunities but it also brought more diversity to the institution because it allowed many students of different races to attend any college they wanted as long as they graduated from High School and had a diploma in hand. According to my field notes on the five demands documentary, “ The open admissions policy of 1969 marked a significant milestone  in the history of CCNY and served as a catalyst for broader discussions about educational equity and social justice.” The idea of this quote is to demonstrate how everything changed for good, but all of this wouldn’t have been possible if these people didn’t take on actions. Now, everyone has access to education and has the freedom to go to any college they want to go and feel comfortable with.}

^{Works cited}

^{Field notes.}

^{The Five demands. (n.d.). https://fivedemands.commons.gc.cuny.edu/} 

^{The Five demands. The Better Angels Society. (n.d.). https://www.thebetterangelssociety.org/films/the-five-}

^{Simms, P. R. (n.d.). What was behind the CCNY takeover?: News: The Harvard Crimson. News | The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/7/22/what-was-behind-the-ccny-takeover}