Educational Journey- Ray by Ray Choudhury

Dublin High School

kgdchoudhury — 2024-09-19 04:15:01 UTC

I went to Dublin High School for all 4 years, and didn't engage much with student organizations or extracurriculars. I always thought I'd go some kind of liberal arts, so I never tried to take any higher level STEM classes. I thought that community college would give me the time to figure something out before I committed to going to a university. Community also had some other benefits, like allowing me to not take the SAT and ACT, and the community college I was planning to attend had a free tuition program. It seemed like a much better choice for me.

COVID

kgdchoudhury — 2024-09-19 04:24:12 UTC

The pandemic began my junior year, and because of the pandemic, CSU's and UC's stopped requiring ACT and SAT test scores for their applications meaning I actually would have been able to apply to a university if I wanted to. Nevertheless, I still thought going to community college was a good idea, because that meant that my college experience would not be ruined by the pandemic.

Diablo Valley College

kgdchoudhury — 2024-09-19 04:35:55 UTC

Diablo Valley College has two campuses, a main one and a small side one, and I only went to the side campus because I lived nearby. It had a pretty small student body and because the pandemic was still ongoing, in-person classes were minimal. All of the classes I took in my time there were online, save for two. I still it, and spent a lot of time at the campus doing my online work. I was still unsure of what I wanted to do, so I fulfilled as many gen ed classes as I could while thinking about what major to choose. I was souring on the idea of a liberal arts major because of how much reading it would require, and ended up going towards something environment related. Unfortunately this meant that I had to make up my lack of STEM in high school by taking a bunch of math and science courses.

San Francisco State University

kgdchoudhury — 2024-09-19 04:54:28 UTC

I ended up choosing SFSU because they allowed lower division transfers and credit-wise I was still a sophomore. Additionally, I really liked the campus and wanted to go somewhere where I'd have freedom of movement without having to buy a car. Transferring in was a bit nerve-wracking, but living on campus in was really nice because all the other residents in my community were living on campus for the first time too. I was lucky to make friends really quickly, and I've been enjoying my coursework, despite picking my major pretty arbitrarily.

Future...?

kgdchoudhury — 2024-09-19 05:12:46 UTC

I'm hoping to find an internship next summer, and graduate in spring 2026. My path after graduation is still a bit unclear, but I am hoping to stay in the Bay Area and find a job using my degree. I also want to save up to potentially go to grad school, and would love to do it somewhere in the Pacific Northwest as I had originally hoped to go to college in the state of Washington.