ALPFA Interview Nayeli

Jaime Ali, a first-generation college student, discusses her experience and the impact of ALFA (Association of Latino Professionals for America). ALFA opened her eyes to various career opportunities beyond law enforcement and legal fields, giving her hope and exposure to different paths. She also highlights the challenges faced by first-generation minority students in finding support and a sense of community on campus, such as not knowing where to go for resources or the importance of internships. ALFA John Jay is a diverse community that supports individuals with different goals and expands its resources beyond accounting and finance to help students interested in law school and graduate school. The Alpha Media Network is described as an "en familia" that provides support and opportunities for growth. Okay. Okay. I have to be serious? Okay. Okay. So, I'm recording now. So, I'm going to start. So, Jaime Ali, thank you for joining me today and talking a little bit about ALFA and your experience. So, first thing I want to ask you is, can you just share your journey as a first-generation college student? Yeah. So, being now in my senior year as a first-generation college student, it's been very challenging, fair to say. I've been basically the first in my family to pursue high school education, and now college education being something completely different has been a challenge, to say the least. Especially not only as a first-generation student, as a first-generation Latina student, I didn't have anyone in my household to look towards for guidance on how to navigate college. So, again, needless to say, it's been a challenge. And how has ALFA impacted that? I'm going to give my whole spiel. As a first-generation Latino student at John Jay College, I have been given a very narrow view of different career opportunities, mainly in law enforcement, criminal justice, potentially looking into graduate school, law school. That's been my view and my experience at John Jay. However, ALFA, being the Association of Latino Professionals for America, encompasses so much more than what I had just seen in my first two years at John Jay when I wasn't involved. In my first two years, I thought it was strictly law enforcement, legal careers I could pursue having my major. But ALFA made me realize that there's so many other careers that aren't just highlighted at John Jay. That's just not the way it is at John Jay. So, ALFA definitely gave me insight to other things I could pursue that I didn't even know existed to what I'm going to pursue after college. So, an example of that is Accenture. Accenture is a consulting firm. Before ALFA, I had no idea that that was even a career, that was even a role. And that's the kind of exposure ALFA gives you, different insights, different careers. And that definitely impacted my experience at John Jay because now it changes the way I view things. There's so many different careers available to students, and it's just changed, how to say. I guess my, okay, I'm going to, this is where I'm going to mess up the interview. I'm so sorry. Pause, and I'm going to have a new thought. Being, at first I wanted a career in the law, and I thought all I had to prepare for was law school. ALFA, though, taught me skills like that could help you prepare for law school, such as interviewing, knowing how to network, a level of professionalism you need to have. And so, that's how it's shaped in one way, just knowing that those are things that everyone needs to do. Everyone needs to have skills. People need to have. And the other way it's, like, how to, not a poem, what's the word? How it's impacted my experience is telling other John Jay students who are like myself, who felt themselves not as passionate to pursue a career in the law, that there's still options available for them. That it doesn't just have to be the law, law enforcement, or nothing. There's so many different opportunities that our majors actually give us an advantage towards when we apply for different roles, because people see that we're applying to a role with a nontraditional, so to say, major. And it's basically given me a sense of, like, hope that just because I don't want to pursue law and having a law background doesn't mean I have to stay confined to law. It's just given me a lot of exposure. That there's different opportunities. And I know I'm saying opportunities a lot, but that's what it is. Opportunity. Yes, I agree. Another question that I have for you is what challenges do you think first-generation minority students face when trying to find support or a sense of community on campus? Just one comment. Wait, you're, like, cutting out. You're, like, frozen. I just had to shut the whole thing off. No. Because I'm like, okay, good now. You're good now. But you were, like, leaving this off. Okay. I was on. Yeah. Disaster. Yeah, because, you know, I'm going to cut this all up. Okay. Please do. So, thank you for that. Another question I have is what challenges do you think first-generation or minority students face when trying to find support or a sense of community on campus? Okay. Challenges people face being a first-generation student myself include just not knowing where to go for certain things, or knowing that there are certain things that we need to have done. For example, I'm going to use the Career Center for this example. Girl, you froze. Nayeli, you're frozen. Okay. I literally – are you speaking? I cannot hear you. Wait, wait, wait. Oh, my gosh. Can you hear me? Okay, yeah. I think you're supposed to have your camera off. Yeah, I'm going to have it off. I'm sorry. Man, I'm just going to, like, ask one last time. Yeah, just have it off because it's, like, cutting out. Am I cutting out? No. I see where, but I just changed my Wi-Fi, too, because I'm like, I don't know. Let me just change the router. But is it good now? Like, can you hear me? Yeah, it's good. Okay. It's okay if I have it off, right? Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. I'm just using the on. Got it. So, back to your question. Do you want to repeat it, or can I just answer it? I think you can just answer it. Okay. So, as a first-generation student myself, the challenges I see is not just simply not knowing what I have to do. And what I mean by that is career-wise, I'm going to give an example about. And we're told at John Jay that there's a career center. Many professors, many people at John Jay highlight to take advantage of it. But as a first-generation student, we're not exactly taught why it's important. Maybe later on, once we're at the point of graduation and we're looking for full-time opportunities, jobs, that being the goal with college, after college, is to hopefully have a better job than what we were starting with. We don't really know until then, or we're not made aware that we should start using it. But by then, it's a little too late because it's something we should have been taking advantage of in the beginning. However, being a first-generation student, we don't really understand why. Like, well, why do I have to go to a resume session? Why do I need to practice interviewing skills? Why should I do this now? Shouldn't I do this once I'm looking for a job, like my full-time job after college? Isn't that the point of it? But that isn't true. You'd want to start pretty early on. But that's the thing. For myself, I didn't really know internships were a thing until the end of my first year or the beginning of my second year. I knew they existed, but I didn't know how important they were either. And it wasn't until I joined a fellowship that was teaching for first-generation students called ANY that taught me the importance in that having an internship gives you experience, and that experience just gives you so much more. How do I say it? That experience basically increases your chances of getting a better offer once you graduate college because the roles you would be applying to by then would want you to have experience during your college years from internships. But I wouldn't have known that if I wasn't a part of that fellowship. So that, I think, has to be the biggest struggle for students is just simply not even knowing that there's value in these things. We have to be taught the value. So I think that's the most important thing about finding a sense of, like, a community within a college is also a community, not just the people that are there, like friends, relationships, friendships. That's cool and all, but also a community that's going to support your continued growth after college. Does that answer your question, or would you like me to? No, it does. Okay. Because I've experienced that myself. Moving on, I'm going to ask you about if you could just describe the Alpha John Jay community. Yeah. The Alpha John Jay community is a community of individuals coming from many different backgrounds. As I had mentioned in your first question, John Jay is primarily law enforcement, legal, like, students that are interested in those kind of professions. However, at Alpha John Jay, just simply from connecting with some of the students in the meetings, I see that they're passionate about doing different things. And that's what I find so unique about this chapter specifically is that we all have different goals. Some of us have in mind law school, grad school, careers in legal, law enforcement, careers in the private sector. We find different things compared to different chapters who are more centered on business. They have literally business goals, and that's their primary focus. I enjoy John Jay's diverse chapter because that just gives us, again, what I think is important, and it's exposure to different careers, exposure to the different things one can pursue. We're not narrow in our focus. We're actually branching out to understand other people's goals and knowing how we can have Alpha be a support to them. Because while Alpha was first started off to be for accounting and finance majors or people interested in pursuing professions within accounting and finance, we're now learning how to expand Alpha and make it a resource for students who don't want to pursue those business careers and help them in things like law school, grad school, knowing how to prepare for that. Yeah, that's great. I almost didn't answer the question. I'm so sorry. You're learning everything perfectly. I just have a couple more questions. Okay. Another question that I have is, can you just talk a little bit about the Alpha Media Network? Yeah. One, two. I love that we call ourselves an Enfamilia so much because I believe it's 100% true. Everybody a part of Alpha is automatically a part of an Enfamilia because this network, why it was created, was to help, at first, Latinos. Now it has branched out, of course. But we understand one another. We know the struggles we're facing. We face certain struggles already. And that's the whole point of an Enfamilia. We have already experienced certain things. So for the next people that come along, in my case, I'm a senior. I've seen the struggles of interviewing, not even the struggles, but just not knowing how to interview properly, have a proper resume. Now I've gone through it. So now I know how to help the next wave of people, like the juniors or sophomores or freshmen or even seniors that are still struggling with that. Now, because I have experience or knowledge to a certain extent, I could pass that down to them or whatever I can and make things a little bit easier. And I think that's what a family is all about, is just providing that support to them and knowing that they have somebody else to go to that they may be more comfortable with compared to, like, I'm going to compare ourselves to a career center. Because a career center can only go so much. They don't connect with you on that personal level compared to the Enfamilia, who is much more closer and something I find more comfort in to, like, approach somebody that's a part of this network because they've already gone through what I have. So they can relate a little bit more. And just having that affiliation to feel like, I don't know, an affiliation of wanting to pursue a goal. I don't know if that made sense. Let me try again. Basically, just connecting with people like myself. Because when you're a part of Alpha, you're a part of a network, Enfamilia. You're a part of, yes, you provide support to other people. But again, I am just a senior. There are professionals in Alpha who have gone through so much more. And those are people now I can look up to, too, if I ever need the support. And they're going to be more than happy to do it because everybody who is a part of Alpha is a part of a network that is of highly motivated individuals. Yes. I love that answer. It's so true. Another question I have is, how does being involved in Alpha influence your leadership skills and career goals? I know that you're the president of the John Jay chapter. So I know you have that leadership experience there. But can you just talk a little bit more about that? Yeah. So this is something I was just reflecting on a few days ago. I feel like I do reflect on this a lot. Being a part of Alpha has definitely changed the way I've been a leader. Before becoming president of Alpha, I was VP. But even then, I didn't have as much responsibility as president. So I wasn't super – I didn't think I had to have the most knowledge when it came to leadership. Or I thought because I was in a leadership position, being a leader would naturally come to me. And that isn't true. For me, for some people, that can't be the case. For me, though, it did not come naturally. And it's something I'm still learning to be better at every day. And being a part of Alpha is like the president specifically, I realized I have a mission that I do want to give back to my John Jay community. I always have wanted to give back. But now being a president, I want to give back specifically to those students involved in Alpha, those tools to be a part of it, and then become involved. I want them to have an easier time knowing how to navigate these things. For me, I struggled a lot. And it was because I couldn't find my sense of community. But being a part of Alpha in this president role has influenced now me thinking beyond myself, like, okay, I struggled. But now it's time to help people not struggle as much if I possibly could. And it's definitely made me take more accountability, more responsibility, more understanding, too, of people's situations. I'll be honest. At first, because I did want things to get done, I felt like I was not understanding people's situations. But now having been some time in this role, I see that there's so many other things going on in one person's life. And that's one thing I'm happy to say about Alpha and being a president has done for me, is just to become truly understand people more. Yeah, truly understand people more and their situation and what they're going through, and just knowing how to work with them and grow from there, rather than just playing the blame game. It's knowing how to navigate those, having those hard conversations in a much more, I don't want to say peaceful, because it's not like it's not peaceful, but a much more, in a much more effective way, having those hard conversations in an effective way. As far as career goals, how has it influenced me? It's influenced me to be open more. I know what I will be pursuing as a career after college. However, I'm still open to the ideas of other things, because I know that the career I have going after college won't have to be the same. It's still being open-minded that there's other things available. Even within my role, I'll be pursuing a consulting role. Within consulting, it's not so straightforward. There's so many. There's an industry I need to choose to be a part of, and then a specific practice. There's so many layers to it. So alpha has definitely just kept me more open to those choices, rather than just staying with what I'm comfortable with. Okay. Thank you. I have two more questions. What advice would you give to students who feel isolated or disconnected from their school communities? And they don't have alpha? Is that part of it? Like there is no alpha? No. I mean, there could be alpha, but if there isn't alpha, then no, it's not. Every single school doesn't have alpha. I'm sure there's similar programs. Yeah. So what advice would you give the students? I just want to have to think a little bit about, so give me a minute. No problem. I feel like maybe to help you a little bit, I feel like I think the most important thing for students in college who are just feeling so disconnected from their community is it's hard, and it sounds so simple, but honestly, to reach out to anyone. It doesn't have to be a teacher, a professional, or somebody that works in the school. It can even be a friend. Just someone that you feel like you can confide in. Tell them how you feel, how the transition is. It's a huge transition. You're really stepping into adulthood when you go into college. And just try to find like-minded people. It can be peers, but it can also be adults. And from there, they could be a part of programs like alpha. Yeah. I thought that was just like very, I'm like, I wanted to give that, just like be open. That's the biggest advice I could give to anybody who feels isolated. Be open to the different things available on your college. Like at first, it may not pique your interest. I know for me, alpha was something I was aware of a little bit prior to becoming activated at John Jay. And again, me being open to the idea of going to a club meeting on a Wednesday when I'd rather much go home after classes was something I wanted to explore. So it's just being open and seeing if you like it from there. Even if it's, like I said before, even if it's something that may not pique your interest at first, that's just what you get from the title. You don't know until you actually go in and like take it, give it a chance and actually sit down for a meeting or have a conversation with a teacher or professor. Those conversations are the ones that take you far because if you're not really branching out. And that's not the, like, that's essentially the advice I would give is be open and branch out of your comfort zone. Be, learn to be comfortable of the uncomfortable. That's the biggest thing I did because I was not comfortable with a lot of things. Like talking to people wasn't the thing I was most excited to. Like, again, I'd rather much go home after classes. But get uncomfortable. Get uncomfortable. Explore because that's the only way you find out about things, venturing out. Yes, exactly. Okay. And our last question for today is, what do you hope for the future of the Alpha John Jay chapter and how do you envision its impact on future generations of students? Yeah. For the future of Alpha John Jay, I definitely hope we have such a large number of Alpha students that we fill up more than just one classroom, that we're going to need a lecture hall. But that's, that's just like one goal. But also like the impact wise for us to become so recognized on campus that maybe this is overhyping it, but I truly believe Alpha John Jay can have this happen. Any chapter actually for Alpha is for it to be known so much more than the career centers at your campus. For students to be like, oh, you're having trouble finding an internship? You should go to Alpha. They just posted this session that helps us with our resumes and I just applied to a bunch. Just to become even, because yes, we are career center focused, but we're more than that. We're something I believe people can grow more than a career center. Maybe that's overhyping it, like I said, but I want Alpha John Jay to become a place where students go to and feel the most comfortable to know how to navigate their careers. It's not just their careers, actually. It's how they're going to develop to be the best person they can be once leaving college because you learn so much more than just applying to things electronically and sending your applications out. You're learning to become a better person for yourself in the future. That's one way I hope it impacts it. I feel like I can answer a little bit more. I think for students to recognize specifically at Alpha John Jay that to take action, that they know that they can take action as early as their freshman year, if not before, when it comes to navigating post-college life, that as freshmen coming into John Jay by their sophomore year, they already know that internships are extremely important. Just knowing that very early on, that's something I hope the future generation from Alpha John Jay know, and that they feel confident by the time, or at least a little bit more confident by the time they're graduating. Yeah. That answers that. Okay. Thank you so much, Nayeli, for taking the time to speak with me about Alpha and your experience. I really appreciate it. I really appreciated hearing from you. Very inspiring. I hope that everyone who listens to this, they learn something new and that they're also inspired if they're students to go out and talk to people and to join a community similar to Alpha. Yeah. Or if they have an Alpha chapter at their school, to go join it. 100%. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much. When I finish this, I'll let you know how it is. I'm very grateful. I got so nervous. I was like, you know, I have not interviewed in, since like last year. Since Accenture. Yes, it's Accenture. And then I left it behind. I was like, okay, no more. No. No, but you answered everything good and, I mean, perfectly. It's just, it was asking about you and Alpha and your experience. That's really what I wanted to know. Because I kind of just want to like, you know, the pieces basically to highlight Alpha and its impact and how good it is for people. And then when I started thinking about it, I was like, who would be the perfect person like me, at least. Thanks. Yeah. I get so nervous, though. Like this was us, because Ivana and Evelyn and I did the video for convention, if you remember. Yeah. I don't even know where that was. But that was nerve-wracking, too, because they said, actually, Alpha helps you. And I'm like, let me be real with you guys. I just went to convention and then took it from there. Yeah. Yeah. Damien would be, again, the CEO. Who better than to hear from Damien about the impact Alpha has had? It would be great if you could. And if you do, let me know that you stay in contact with him. Hopefully, I can. Hopefully, he's not super busy. Yeah. You know, he can take like 25 minutes, 30 minutes to talk to me. He's going to yell. He's going to be like, well, what did Alpha do for you? Yeah, he'll be like, what about you? You know he worked at Accenture? Yeah, I know. Yeah. I did my research on him. Oh, you had to. Yeah. You had to, obviously. Yeah. Yeah. No, but yeah. Hopefully, this helped. No, it didn't. I hope.