“She was given many leaders to look up to and follow their lead and go to college.”

 Yatziry Alferez finished college at the age of 24 and was so inspired she continues to work at a college. 

She was given many leaders to look up to and follow their lead and go to college. 

She chose psychology as her major for many reasons as being able to be available to other similar jobs and well paid.

Transcript: 

Emily Avila : Hi I am Emily Avila interviewing Yatziry Alferez, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? 

Yatziry Alferez: Well as you mentioned my name is Yatziry Alferez I was born in raised in California by a single mother. I am 25 years old. I was a previous Animo student.  I graduated from Animo Ralph Bunche Charter High School and I went to the California State University at Los Angeles. I pursued a bachelors in psychology and right now I am also working at California State University of Los Angeles as staff.

EA: What made you interested in college?

YA: What made me interested into college was that I want to further my education and that way I would be able to help people out  because that is what I would like to do in the future is just help others in need and stuff like that.

EA: Why did you want to do this major? 

YA: I was always interested in the way the mind works and why we do the stuff that we do and it also depends on the situations that were in so I chose psychology because I know that psychology is a very broad major so I know I can do many other things with it not just social work I can do case management and there’s so many other jobs that I can do with this major.

EA: What are your academic strengths?

YA: My academic strengths would be that I am very detailed oriented and very organized I want everything to be done perfectly and at a certain time so I am very good at meeting deadlines.I’m able to multitask as well as figuring things out with getting help from others or just finding the answers on my own. 

EA: What do you expect to be doing in ten years from now?

YA: In ten years from now I expect to have my masters in social work have a very stable job in the social work field being able to help children out getting them into the right place, the right family, the right home, and for them to feel loved, and have a safe place where they are no longer being mistreated, or anything like that.

EA: What would you change about your high school preparing students for college?

YA:  What I would change from my high school would be the way that the teachers will run a lecture, I wish that they would make it seem like we are in college already and instead of just doing power points, because in college there’s times where the professors wouldn’t have a power point or anything up and it was just verbal lectures and we would have to take down. What was most important, so I would say having students be prepared in that aspect as well.

As the writing requirements, I wish they would’ve been a little more strict in the way they would want essays written and just to help us get through the whole process of going from like a rough draft and making sure that the essay was at least at a college level.

EA: What would be some positive things that high school prepared you for college?

YA: Some positive things would be those AP classes, those really helped out with making sure that we did pass the test and if we did pass the test that would be a credit for a GE requirement at the university so that’s one way that it did help out just helping us get through credits that would avoid us adding an extra semester to our college career.

EA: Whom do you admire most that led you to continuing college?

YA: Those that admire me would be my aunts I have 2 aunts that did procured  a college career out of everyone in the family from my moms side and then it was me so i hope me going to college will inspire other people to go ahead and just further their career even though that I understand that school isn’t meant for everybody but at least give it a try and see if you enjoy it.

EA : What makes you most unique?

YA: What makes me most unique would be my humbleness the fact that I always try to help people out even if I don’t put myself first as well as caring for others on a very different level than many people do and make sure that everyone is OK. I’m also a person that you can come to if you want advice or if you just need someone to talk to ,as well as just giving advice especially to those that I know I can help through my own experiences so just try to help people out.

EA: Thank you so much for all your answers.

YA: You’re welcome.