Ms.

LaTorre

Design & Digital

2 May 2019

Senior Defense Script

Good afternoon audience, My name is Fernando Osuna and today I will be presenting my Senior

Defense. I am a kid who was born and raised here in Los Angeles, California by two affectionate loving

parents. A brief explanation about my template choice, so my template is a house and each bubble will

have a background of an important step when building a house however this also represent my growth as

a students and the steps it took for me to become a Global Ambassador. When growing up my family of

six would have to share a 1 bedroom apartment. I remember my brother and I were lucky to get the

bedroom and sleep in the bunk bed. My grandma and aunt would have to sleep on the bed that was

located in the living room. And My parents would have to sleep on a sofa in the living room that would

turn into a bed. However, in the beginning of middle school my parents were fortunate to find a 3

bedroom and 2 bath house with enough space for all 6 of us with the help of section 8. One of the

challenges though was the commute from my house which is now and currently is located in South LA to

my school. As time passed I was used to getting up early in order to make it to school on time. I have

been getting up everyday at 5:45am since middle school til now. I’m actually here at MCLC a little before

7:00am the latest 7:10am. My parents ultimate dream is being able to live in a house where they can say I

own this house. This why the template of my prezi is a house that my parents would consider to be their
dream house. With me going to college and being able to make a career in civil engineering would make

my family and I one more closer to my parents dream.Through my four years of attending the Los

Angeles School of Global Studies, my experience here has been a lot of wild and beautiful adventures.

My agency was not how it is now, I would usually depend on teachers to remind me about certain

assignments or projects that were about to be due. Or I would wait until my friends would do it (and they

would do it last minute) so that we can at least help each other. It wasn’t until this year that I started using

my google calendar. This helped me remind myself and alert me of the assignment that was going to be

due. I would often remind myself a week before if it’s a project so that I can get a headstart. I was quite

responsible when I first came to Global Studies but over time I would procrastinate and not do my work. I

would get lazy to even start my homework or any assignments I had. However, I started getting more

responsible and turning in my assignments so my grades wouldn’t go down. Since I knew colleges would

be looking over my grades and seeing how well I was doing in my classes. My communication skills have

improved greatly since my first time arriving at Global Studies. I would try to avoid presenting first or at

all because I couldn’t mentally prepare myself to talk to an audience. However, as time past I was able to

get better and improve. I was able to take COMM 101 which is a college class for public speaking. In the

class, we had to create three speeches and delivered them to our classmates. My high school experiences

have prepared me to be a Global Ambassador because I am not only able to find personal relevance in my

work but have also reflected on my individual role to make positive impact to myself and to the

community. My Ideas and evidence are thoroughly developed and elaborated not only in writing but when

collaborating with others. Although I work better independently I have learned how to actively check in

with my peers in order to succeed.

Wild Card

For my first artifact I will be talking about my Wild Card. For my Wild Card artifact it’s not what I

produce but more of what I was given when being done with the training. My artifact is an award that I
received for my completion of a college ambassador training aka a Peer Leader. While being in YPI I was

fortunate it enough to join a group called Peer Leaders. The point of the group was that 40 students in our

whole complex were able to go to UCLA, for the summer and stay for four days and three nights. And

this is our little card they gave us once we arrived where it had our schedule for what we will be doing for

the next 4 days.The different knowledge or information I gained from this project was being able to learn

about different type of colleges, scholarships, and grants, and additional resources students are able to get.

We had meetings during the days that we would talk about a specific topics, such as PIQ’s, choosing

majors, financial aid. With the knowledge and the college ambassador training manual that I gained, I was

able to go back to my school and help students with their college applications. Every Tuesday Peer

Leaders like myself would stay after-school in Mr.Browns class in order to help students with either

applying or creating college portals. Also Oswaldo and I would make announcements in our advisory

about different colleges who were visiting our campus. An academic skill I improved was my public

speaking skills since I had to talk not just to one but to multiple people. I knew improving my public

speakings would help me become a global ambassador because I know in college there will a lot oral

communication between students. I took it upon myself to join the Peer Leader program offered by YPI in

order to educate myself about the topic of college and to make positive influence in the Global Studies

community by helping students apply for college.

CRA: For my second artifact I will be talking about my CRA. The reason I produce this was to be able

show a well written CRA about how it’s better to have a higher education rather than a high school one.

In this project, I was asked to understand the different post-secondary options and how one can value

college. I completed my project by reading books where the main character would be struggling in

school such as in high school or in college. Have class seminars every Friday and Also by choosing a

current event with my group and being able to present it to our class. Finally writing an essay on
post-secondary options.While doing this project I learned that multiple government studies shows that

college graduates typically earn more in their lifetime than a high school graduate. While high school

graduates earn about $1,304,00, college graduates often earn up to $2,268,000 in a lifetime (Edelson).

Meaning that college grads with a B.A typically earn 1 million more in a lifetime than a high school grad.

Also that College grads have a 24% higher chance of being hired than a high school grad (Edelson). I was

able to link back my paragraph to my thesis or my topic sentence. I was able to write a decent rebuttal in

my paragraph. I was able to learn how to appropriately cite my citations when creating my CRA.

Developing the skill to be able to elaborate on my ideas based on evidence has prepared me to become a

global ambassador because I will be able to write reports and essays that will have a consistent controlled

idea throughout the paper . This artifact also helped me understand college more and what I should be

aware of and how getting an higher education can be one of the greatest investments in my life.

Academic Pathway: My artifact is a news article that I created with my partner about the causes and effect

if immigration. We wrote this article because it was relevant during the time we created this. During the

time I wrote this article the caravan was happening that was full of immigrants from Central Americans

who were trying to escape the poverty and violence of their country. I felt compassion when writing this

article because my parents are also immigrants who were trying to have a better life. So when writing this

article I was able to write it in a perspective of an immigrant achieving the american dream. In this

project, I was asked to write an article about the economic causes and effects about immigrants. We even

went as far as to add ads in order to give it the feel of a real article on a website. So we had to interview

people who can talk about why someone might try to emigrate from their country to the US. We would

have to write about some push factors that people experience in their country and some obstacles people

face when coming to the US. To create this artifact, I had to learn about why the immigrants were leaving

their country in the first place. We had to be able to understand the circumstances that they were living in,
in order to comprehend why so many people were desperately trying to come into this country. Not only

was I able to learn about economic related words but also the economy of each country. How some

countries become poor due to the civil war and investing in militarized weapons instead of providing

basic social services to their people. Or how NAFTA has displaced many Mexico farmers because they

couldn’t compete subsidized and mechanized American corn growers. We completed our project by

reading books about the economic effects and causes of immigration and participated in seminars. We

also read current events articles in order to give current event presentation to our class mates. In addition

we also watched a document about the history of different countries in central america called Harvest of

Empire. An academic skills that I has prepared me to be a Global Ambassador was actively checking in

with my peers in order to succeed and have a well written article. This skills will be most important when

working as a civil engineer because there will need to be a lot communication when discussing the design

and construction of a building. Also Knowing about causes of immigration has prepared me to be a

Global Ambassador because not only do I feel empathy and understand what their going through but also

keeps me motivated to keep being involved in my community. It has showed me that not only do

immigrants come here to have a better life but to be able to have a life where they can escape the

violence, corruption, and poverty in their country. It helps me better talk about the situation to others and

help raise awareness.

Conclusion: My future plan for my education is Being able to go to college just how my brother and my

aunt did. I am deciding to go to Cal State LA in order to pursue my major in Civil engineer . Being able

to finish and get a degree in civil engineer to be able to get a job as structural engineer. Having a higher

education would be beneficial for me because I know getting a degree would mean getting more money

meaning being more financially stable. I’ll be try to achieve at least B.A or a Master in order to be a

structural engineer or an Engineering manager. A ​program accredited by ABET is needed in order to gain
licensure, which is required to work as a professional engineer, so I’ll need to complete this program in

order to be a structural engineer.​ Hopefully my financial aid is able to cover most of my expensive so that

I don't have to take that much loans out. However I recently found out that I would be left with about

$3,000 left from my financial aid meaning I won’t have loans to pay back. One of my biggest challenges

in college I think would be balancing my expenses. Having to know how to spend my money so that I

won’t be in debt with myself. Especially resisting the temptations of buying things I don’t need and not

spending money on food such as carry out. I am somewhat emotionally prepared for life after high school

due to the fact that there are more responsibilities that I will have to take care of. However my high school

teachers and staff have prepared me to go to college by talking about their experiences, how they felt like

on their first day, and what they did to get involved. In addition, I know if I’m ever feeling stressed I’ll be

able to come back to Global Studies and seek help from Ms.Kantack, YPI, or even the teachers here. I feel

ready for college and my life beyond high school because I’ve been taught things that have made me be

College and Career ready. One of the most obvious things would be College and Career where we do the

mock interview. I mean I find that really helpful knowing what to expect when I go to real life interview

when applying to a job. Also being taught how to organize a resume so that it can stand more and having

more of a chance of getting hired. The actions I have taken to illustrate my readiness is that I have taken

two college classes here in LASGS, so I know what to expect when going to college. I have seen

syllabuses not only from the classes I have taken here but also my brothers who goes to Cal State LA.

Another example of my readiness would be when I went on a trip with YPI to become a Peer Leader to be

able to learn about what to expect in college. When I’m faced with an obstacle I usually try to figure it out

myself so that I can at least try on my own. If I am not able to fix a problem or overcome a challenge I

would go over to my peers or my friends and ask them for help or advice in order to fix the issue. I would

have to keep a note to myself how I was able to overcome that obstacle so that next time I’m faced with a

similar obstacle I am prepared and know what I need to do. The way I plan to act like a Global
Ambassador later in life is by living up to our motto here in Global Studies which is “Trust, Respect,

Responsible.” Not only that but keeping being involved not only to my college community but the

community I live in and seeing what things need to happen in order for people to feel safe but more

importantly fulfilling their needs. In summary, I am ready to become a Global Ambassador in college and

out in the real world because not only did I prove that I made positive change within the community in

my school but also learned vital skills such as actively checking in with peers and fulfilling leadership

roles to reach and ultimate goal and I am able to exhibit personal experiences in my work.