By Sydney Mitchell
Find Your Pod is a student-led conference that helps introduce students who are on the same academic pathways to each other.
Joy Kumala, a student and the ASWCC director for Academic Success, and adviser Kunbi Ajiboye, the Associate Director for Student Life and Development are the organizers.
This conference encourages academic engagement. It gives students a chance to meet others who have the same majors and academic interests, and could potentially be in the same classes or pathways.
Ajiboye says that if students “feel a connection to other students they become more motivated on their education path.”
There are eight options that students can register for, arts and communication, business, culture and society, healthcare and social services, education, public service, information technology and computer science, science engineering and math, exploring pod, and the sorting pod.
The exploring pod and the sorting pod both are for students who are unsure about what they want to major in.
The pods are created to help students get a better idea of what they would like to major in and ultimately get a degree in.
Guided Pathways helps simplify choices for students in order to form clear paths for their career.
The Guided Pathways committee looks at the classes at Whatcom Community College that are the most popular, and picks those to focus on.
This conference is the first part of a set of Saturday conferences that Whatcom puts on. The first is Catch the Next Wave in October, the next is Find Your Pod in February, and the third is Students Leading Change in May.
Ajiboye believes students should be interested in this conference because it “forms connections and relationships.”
Justin Ericksen, the conference speaker, spoke about community, connections, his academic journey and mistakes and failures.
Ericksen says students should take “motivation to connect with other students, faculty, and staff to help them broaden their communities
He thought that this conference is important because, “building communities of students is always important.”
“This shows that the school is thinking about your best interest and they want to help you succeed.” said Ericksen.
Students can find information on the conference or any other conferences on the calendar on the Whatcom website.
The information will be up all year long but students are only able to register when the conference they would like to attend is closer to approaching.
