Most people have heard of AP classes and how they can help you get college credit, but there’s another program that can help you get to college – AVID.
The first time I heard about AVID was my freshman year since all freshmen had a seminar class, which made me really curious to learn more about college and what it offered. Mr. Grant was my freshman seminar teacher and he told us that this program was a great opportunity. We talked about how it helps first generation college students and how we learned new skills like time management and the proper way to study for a test.
AVID, which stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a program designed to help students, mostly first-generation students, when it comes to preparing them for a higher education. It focuses on growth mindset, critical thinking, time management and organization.
For first-generation students, AVID provides us with a big support system that might not be available at home, by offering mentorships and guidance through the whole educational system. Also, it assists students with college applications, scholarships, FAFSA and navigating the process of applying for financial aid. AVID prepares students for college.
I remember thinking of how cool it would be to go on field trips and explore all different types of colleges. I didn’t know exactly where I wanted to go or what to major in, but I had always thought of going to CSUMB and doing something with my life from there. So I decided to join AVID my sophomore year and see what my journey would be like.
Sophomore year in AVID was kind of boring because we didn’t really talk about college. We mostly did tutorials twice a week. But once junior year started, everything started getting real.
We started working on PIQ’s for our UC applications, which came in handy senior year. AVID is mostly helpful in your junior and senior year. That’s when we all start talking about college, scholarships and the process of everything.
Senior year is when we are all stressed about college applications, scholarships and FAFSA, but Mrs. Huerta is right there for every step of the way. She checks our college applications to make sure all of our information is correct before we hit submit.
She makes sure we get fee waivers for four CSU’s and UC’s, we work on scholarships and she helps us with financial aid to get as much money as we can. This has been really helpful because without AVID, I would’ve been lost in this process all by myself.
It seemed like yesterday that I listened to the AVID presentation and this year I was part of those presentations. I presented for Mr. Madrigal, Mr. Patel, and Mr. Grant. We basically talked about the main focus of the program and at the end of the presentation there was a slide with a QR Code which opened a Google doc with a couple of questions for students to join. During these presentations one of the freshmen mentioned how he is not a first generation student, and if he was still able to join. I told him that it benefits any kind of student no matter the background, it offers a great support and resources that can help anyone.
While students don’t have to join as freshmen or sophomores it’s a lot easier if you join during freshman year to secure a spot. Students can join junior year, but they’ll need to go through an interview with Huerta and hope there are openings.
I’ve always wanted to go to CSUMB and major in liberal studies, maybe even get a minor in social work. My parents told me that It would be better going to CSUMB since I can travel when I have classes and I can stay home. I didn’t mind when they told me this, since that has always been my plan.
I got accepted to CSUMB on January 10, I was really excited. AVID has been really helpful throughout my journey because every little question I had, anyone in class could have helped me since we were all trying to do our applications right, to get accepted to our dream college.
In AVID, an important life lesson I learned is the importance of resilience and managing stress. These skills are going to be helpful for my career of becoming a kindergarten teacher, where patience and understanding is the fundamental key and I owe it to the AVID program for helping my dream become my reality.
