Week 3 at AYA!

It is so crazy how fast time is passing by. I am enjoying every moment at AYA, and it’s really been fun.

For our third week in AYA, we were visited by a panel of AYA Alumni, which included Kalyn Mason, Devin Huynh, Kaitlin Huang, Leyla Navarrete, Zoilo Perez, and Troi-Lyn Moore.

They spoke to us about their experiences at AYA, and they mapped out their experiences after AYA as well. Through all of them, the main lesson was this: maintain connections.

After their talk, everybody went up to them and asked for their LinkedIns. It was really interseting to hear from people who were living our future as AYA alumni.

In Dr. Rogelio’s class, Adrian, Juan and I facilitated a discussion about Atzlan. We added in a lot of reading-specific questions, but I think that people responded better to the broader questions, like “What is the role of art in different movements?”. I found that people were able to connect their own knowledge to broader questions better.

We also learned about the idea of the “civic imagination”, which was the ability of the people to visualize their society in the future–as well as if they are able to visualize the change needed to create their ideal society.

This week, I was able to be a news anchor for our weekly newscast in Journalism 101, and I had so much fun. It really got me thinking–do I want to major in Broadcast Journalism? It was really the intersection between my performing arts background and love for news.

It was funny; this week, after the newscast, everyone crowded into Media Center A for a group picture. It was definitely not meant to fit 26+ people.

Overall, this week I had a lot of fun! I’m really sad that next week is our last week.