Bryan Pope's TRiO SSS Success Story

Name: Bryan Pope
Semester/Year Started at WCC: Fall 2012
Semester/Year Started in TRiO SSS: 2012 
Degree(s) Earned at WCC or 4yr. college/university: First semester N/A
Semester(s)/Year(s) Graduated: N/A

How has TRiO SSS helped you/what services have you used?

In a nutshell, TRiO is the resource center at WCC. A place to find and work with tutors, work on the computer, stay abreast of information for scheduling and upcoming events. Plus it’s a good place for a one-dollar cup of coffee.

Personal Statement:

On the morning of the first day of classes, I packed my books inside my job site bag with wheels, hopped on the bus, and went to my first class. My English instructor reminded me of this half way through the semester and we both had a laugh. Fall 2012 has been my first semester and I can honestly say that I didn’t know what to expect. Nor did I have the slightest notion of how to be academic.

 I made my decision to go back to school in 2010 in an attempt to give my life a positive direction. I applied at Kauai Community College for the fall semester but was hospitalized on the 27^th of July by a car accident. It was over a year before I could walk without a cane, and I still have trouble from my injuries.

I reapplied for spring but quit going because of homelessness and my problem with alcohol. After ongoing attempts at self- control, I finally (after over a decade of failure) came to a difficult but heartfelt conclusion that I no longer had anything left to offer, drunk or sober. This was the honesty I needed to accept help and make a real change. That was Aug. 2011.

On Sep.1^st, 2011, (my sobriety date) I entered the Hina Mauka Treatment Facility. In March 2012 I graduated the program and started becoming more active in AA. School was always on my mind, but I took good advice and started on myself first.

I applied at Windward Community College for Fall 2012 and was accepted. I started out with good intentions; listen closely, take a lot of notes, and ask questions. Ask lots of questions. As it turned out, I hadn’t a clue about how to take notes. It didn’t become evident to me until my first history exam. I was answering the numbered questions with almost enough information to write the essay, and still my instructor had to point this out to me. I managed to get a C on that test only because I answered all the numbered questions correctly, but I had no time for the essay. I made a B on the next exam because I didn’t spend as much time on the questions. The Discussion Worksheets were a must, and it gave me my first glimpse of how to outline and structure my notes in a coherent format, but the SI classes brought a great deal of information into a flowing perspective. The one thing I had up my sleeve is that I am a musician, and I have my own way for memorizing song lyrics. I write them down the way I would sing them, with notations for changes, and capital letters for punctuation. For academic purposes, I write in my own voice and I add things I feel are important to the story in my own kind of shorthand. From there, on one side of a sheet of paper, I can write names and places. On the other side I list events, other minor people involved, and dates related to the subjects on the first side. I can then find the things I don’t remember immediately and focus on what I need to memorize. At first I was putting the dates with people and places, but the way I do it now works better. This is nothing new I suppose, but once I got this, it became an extension of what I was doing with song lyrics.

Expository Writing was a different story. The instructor encouraged us to be inventive, so I thought, yes, all right!

But no, I didn’t get it, and I kept on not getting it through three essays and a report. I had to re-wright two essays, one of which I had to completely change the whole theme and topic. There was just no way to salvage it. It took all of that for me to finally turn in a report written in third party.

English 100 is where I learned a lot academically. We went over all the writing styles, how to format a paragraph, how to format an MLA header and bibliography etc. Of course we went over much more than that, and it was basic stuff, but it was all brand new to me. In fact, this class and ICS 50 went hand in hand often.

I came in to this class thinking, “I know how to write, I read a lot, and, I write song lyrics.” And that’s all fine, but I know what I learned here made the difference in my voice and application in order to get an idea across understandably. I think it changed the way I talk a little bit.

My ICS class also threw me off. For one, I had just bought my first pc a year earlier and was still a novice. In class we were working with Windows, and I was used to the Mac. I caught on slower than I wanted, not so much from using Windows, but because I didn’t know how to do very basic things. For instance, I never used my toolbox. I didn’t investigate my toolbar much. My Reflection Paper was nearly two pages long. I’ve started editing video before this coarse was over. I’ll never stop learning on the computer. I finished with an A and I’m enrolled in ICS 100 and 123 for the spring, 2013.

It’s the same thing in this class as with the rest; I learned to get organized, and I developed a system that keeps me focused. I’m sure this coming semester is going to run much smoother and be less frantic. I passed my classes and I learned what was pertinent for my first semester; organization and a determined focus.  

Thank You, Bryan Pope