Major: Business
Project: Researching and learning for personal epistemology.
Inspiration: I would say many kids grow up participating in many different communities and as you advance in grade school many grade school kids might only focus on one thing so I want them to have a place that can allow them to talk and participate in many different forms of learning.
Future Goals: I hope to be able to boost self-confidence in individuals. I also want to create a place one day students can meet.
Major: Journalism
Project: Make a documentary to showcase the struggles that first-generation and undocumented students are faced with when going to college
Inspiration: Family
Future Plans: I hope to increase the support CSU gives its first generations and undocumented students.
Major: Cinema Studies with an emphasis on Production
Minor: Business
Project: Practically what I stated over on the top, doing a documentary and using the power of storytelling to be able to bring a community together. With a sense of belonging as well as connecting to points to hopefully bring about possible solutions to said problems.
Inspiration: Well I love movies, and I hope to become a filmmaker one day. Doing this project not only connects my passion but also focuses on areas of mental health and communities that I know struggle and come from similar backgrounds as me.
Future Plans: I hope to make an impact with storytelling, allowing people to heal.
Major: Business – Accounting and Operations Management
Project: My idea right now is trying to figure out a way to educate families and students specifically POCs on AP and concurrent enrollment classes. In order to increase the number of POCs that choose to further their education in college and how these classes can help them with that.
Inspiration: Growing up I had always chosen to take AP/Honors courses and in all those years I was usually one of the only POC in my classes and I didn’t notice it until about my senior year. And most of my peers didn’t take them because they were scared away by them being harder and counselors telling them that the regular classes would be easier for them. When in all reality they were not educated on the classes and how they could help them in the future.
Future Goals: I want to show POC students that they are worthy and just as capable as any other students to take those advanced courses and succeed in them. And I want families to have more education on the classes that their children are taking and the impact that they have on their futures.
Major: Business Analytics and Information Management
Project: During my time at Puksta, I want to continue working on the program I started in my hometown school district, “Habriendo Puertas,” which focuses not only on first-generation, minority students but also the parents. We try to keep parents in the loop as much as possible so that they don’t fall into a hole of fear and stop their kids from continuing their education.
Inspiration: What inspired me to choose this project was that I went through this and I know many people whose parents also felt like this. Towards the end of our senior year, we discovered that parents are usually more understanding of things when they know what’s going on as far as what college is about.
Future Plans: I hope to see more people of color attending big universities. Diverse and inclusive schools would make people feel more welcome and incentivize more people to attend.
Major: Physics
Minor: Mathematics
Project: As an elected member of Student Government, I’m working on writing and passing bus line resolutions
Inspirations: All of my professors are white, and I wouldn’t be able to take physics in Boulder due to the fact that I have no money for that kind of education.
Future Goals: Get more students of color to apply for STEM positions. Find a way to help our society in a different way.
Major: Geography- Urban Planning
Project: I will continue working on my free and open-source database in which people can access information about underrepresented topics in mainstream education. These include social and environmental justice topics.
Inspiration: I was inspired by the information I was able to find in my search for “social justice”. I wanted to share this information with others in a free and accessible way.
Future Plans: I hope to make it so people are not as intimidated by the idea of social justice in Denver and beyond. I wanted to make resources easier to find.
Major: Music – Recording Arts Emphasis
Minor: Music Industry Studies
Project: My project is centered around psychology and helping incarcerated individuals with self-care and mental health. I plan to introduce Mutual Aid Self/Social Therapy, or MAST, to prison populations. MAST is essentially group therapy without having to pay for a therapist, rather you utilize friends and colleagues. It utilizes methods from psychology such as cognitive behavioral therapy, which explores the intricate relationships between thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. MAST was originally developed by social activists as a way for oppressed people to practice self-care and improve mental health. I am developing a training to show to willing participants, and I plan to be the proctor for these MAST sessions for incarcerated individuals.
Inspiration: There are numerous racial disparities in the criminal justice and mental health systems. I hope that MAST will provide a way around these systems and improve incarcerated individuals’ mental health. As a former psychology major and as someone with multiple mental health diagnoses, I know just how helpful learning more about one’s mind can be. I believe that MAST will provide incarcerated people with helpful tools to use during incarceration and reentry alike.
Future Goals: I plan to be a mental health advocate and help break the stigma around mental health in all that I do. Even with my music major, I plan to be a producer and provide artists with a platform to share their stories while promoting their well-being. As for my project, I plan to continue working until MAST is implemented as an integral part of rehabilitation and incarceration.
Major: Construction Management, Minor in Business
Project: Finding a possibility of reusing construction material rather than it just being thrown out. Anything from drywall, and plywood to cabinets, and more, etc. After the material is damaged, just barely or even left over. A lot of times it is thrown out rather than saved or recycled.
Inspiration: I began working construction in September 2021 and was surprised when they’d tell me, “just throw it out”, and it could be material that was still good for a purpose. Maybe not at the time, but eventually it could have been used or rather donated somewhere to be used.
Future Goals: I’d like to reach out to an organization that has begun doing such things already, One I have found in the Denver area is “Perks Deconstruction”, which focuses on salvaging material during demolitions. I’d like to work alongside a group such as theirs to help push the thought of saving material even more.
Major: Studio Art
Project: I hope to develop a project to celebrate, protect, and project the voices, identities, and stories of LGBTQ+ and BIPOC people through the arts and literature. I would also love to explore this with a focus on Arab/Arab American identities.
Inspiration: I have always navigated the world through stories. Whether through books, movies, cartoons, or graphic novels I have been able to make the experience of my world richer by indulging in the creativity and stories of people from all stretches of life even if I was just at home. Art is powerful and it has moved me to care for so much of our world and I hope that I can contribute to that so that our world can be more compassionate, fun, and equitable.
Future Plans: I hope that whatever work I choose to do helps strengthen communities, fights against erasure, and moves LGBTQ+ and BIPOC resistance and pride forward.
