As November rolls around, everyone’s looking to volunteer on Thanksgiving (day), serving meals to the less fortunate, delivering food to seniors, collecting can goods, opening up their homes for dinner to orphans (like me being in Hawaii), etc. I look at volunteering as long term efforts and projects, continually raising awareness, getting your messages across, gathering people for change, and it’s not just in one day. I can’t speak much about this “Occupy” awareness going on across the world, it still puzzles me. But I can speak about one of my many volunteer efforts, building a bridge across the Pacific between UC Santa Cruz and Hawaii. Like what I wrote on the Hawaii Banana Slugs Facebook page, I started this group to network with other alums from my school, and finding out there were over 400+ Slugs in Hawaii.
Recently a representative from the school was in Hawaii doing high school recruiting, and I got to help out with that. It was great to share my school experience with the young minds and ensure their parents it’s a great school to go to. UCSC’s campus and location is very much like Hawaii, very green with mountains/forests and not far from the beach. The weather is great during the warmer months but does get the Bay Area foggy cold air and I’ve experienced El Nino during my freshman year. The town’s a little more hippy-like, not so much North Shore country, kinda inbetween Honolulu and Hale’iwa, maybe Lahaina-like?
Some facts about the school:
- Ranked 1st worldwide for research impact in molecular biology and genetics
- 1st nationally for publication impact in the computer engineering Ph.D program
- 4th among top N. American universities for research influence
- 6th nationally amoung medium-sized schools for alumni participation in the Peace Corps
- 7th worldwide in international finance
- 18th worldwide for reserach impact in geosciences
- 29th nationally among public doctoral universities
- One of the highest percentages of students participating in Education Abroad Program (EAP).
It’s very rewarding to give back to the community, especially to my alma mater and Hawaii. It felt great to not only get alums involved with my efforts, but also helping UCSC directly with spreading the message about what a great school it is, the invaluable education and life experiences the students will get, creating a connection with potential students and their parents, and laying the koa wood planks to build the bridge from Hawaii to Santa Cruz \m/.
