All posts by Domenica Flores

SPC and Community Brainstorm Hispanic/Latino Student Support

International Students, News

As part of the ongoing effort to facilitate student success, SPC’s Collaborative Lab hosted a session on helping Hispanic/Latino students improve their academic development on Thursday, July 28. Staff, students, and community members gathered together to brainstorm strategies for engaging Hispanic/Latino students and their families with our college.  The group established three strategies, each with a success plan with three main solutions:

  • Pre-enrollment: In this section, we focused on how best to reach to the Hispanic/Latino community and give them information about our college.
  • Enrollment: In this section, we focused on how to encourage Hispanic/Latino student to move forward from initial application at SPC to enrollment in classes.
  • Retention: After discussing possible reasons why Hispanic/Latino students drop out of college, we focused on strategies for keeping students enrolled in classes.

Hispanic-Latino Collaborative Lab 2As an international Hispanic student at SPC, it was such an honor to be part of an event which was motivated by a desire to help my community succeed. It was a great opportunity for me to talk about some main reasons why Hispanic students drop out of college and try to find solutions to these issues. In this meeting, I could feel how SPC staff and students care about my community and want to look out for our well-being. As a student, it makes me feel comfortable and supported to know that SPC is eager to support our success in college, and I am grateful for that.

 

My Experience Being a Peer Leader at FILC 2016

Travel

Hello there! My name is Domenica Flores. I am an international student here at SPC, and I have a dream of becoming an Animal Biologist. Being a student at SPC for a year now, I have been active in multiple clubs and organizations. The school has given me various opportunities to enhance my skills. One of them was being able to attend the Florida International Leadership Conference (FILC) twice!

Last year I went to FILC as a participant and it was a wonderful experience. I got the chance to make new friends, learn more about leadership skills and enjoy my time at the conference; that’s why, this year, I’ve decided to submit an application to be a peer leader and was accepted!

The conference took place in DeLeon Springs, in a national park big enough to hold students, advisors, peer leaders and staff from different colleges and universities from all over Florida. I have to say that being a peer leader is such an amazing experience because you get the chance to put in practice your leadership skills getting more connected and involved with the conference helping around and being part of several events.

My team was the best. We had a perfect combination of skills that our duties were done faster and better than expected. I had the chance to be in charge of some fun events such as the karaoke night, the dance and coffee house; where students gather around to have fun and relax after a day full of activities. I made so many friends and got the chance to see some old friends I made at last year’s FILC. This was such an enriching experience for everybody, we had such a great time that at the end of the conference it was hard to say goodbye.

Hopefully next year I can go back as a peer leader again!

English Conversation Partners

Events, News

Designed by an international student for international students, the English Conversation Partners took its pilot launch at Clearwater Campus last Fall 2015 term. Domenica Flores, the creator of the program, is an international student who knows the struggles of students who don’t have English as their first language. With her passion, this program helped non- English speakers improve their language skills by having a casual conversation with an American or fluent-speaker student who can correct any mistake in their pronunciation.

In the library, at SPC Clearwater campus, the students share stories, play games or even create group chats to make the session even more fun!

A thank you goes to the International Club, the sponsor of this program, the High Achiever Club, the Library and all the staff and students who volunteer; this workshop has been a success and hopefully is going to continue for the many more semesters.