In My Words

Are you interesting in attending graduate school and earning your Ph.D.? If so, please consider applying to the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, a TRIO program which prepares qualified undergraduate students for graduate school entry, with the primary goal of increasing the attainment of the Ph.D. by first-generation and underrepresented students.

Multicultural Vision Program scholars were asked to reflect on their first year at Iowa State in a creative way. Paulina discusses their experiences as a first-year student in Apparel Merchandising and Design and how Paulina channeled the experiences into a dress entered in the 2021 Fashion Show. See her reflection below. You can enable closed caption as needed.

When Destiny Payne was deciding what school, she wanted to attend after her undergraduate program, she wanted to pick an institution that would give her a different experience than her last institution. She wanted to go to a bigger institution that also had a well-established student affairs program.

So, when she found out that she could enroll in a student affairs program that had a social justice focus, she was immediately attracted to Iowa State.

My name is Hugo O. Perez Loa! I am a recent graduate from the class of Fall 2020 at Iowa State University! My Major is in BLS (Bachelors of Liberal Studies) and I’m from Storm Lake, Iowa!

The Crazy Life of A Mexican Warr;or is a YouTube video series that was created by, yours truly! I was nominated by Brian Behnken to do a collaboration with Iowa State’s MSA (Multicultural Student Affairs) Office, as well as their student website blog, The Hype, to produce a post of my experience as a Multicultural college student and, of course, as an Iowa State Student.

On May 25th, 2020, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer outside of a grocery store in Minneapolis for allegedly using a fake 20 dollar bill. His death is one in a long and storied history of police brutality against African-Americans in the United States. Shortly after, protests began in Minneapolis, and have swept across the globe. My name is Takashi Runtsch, and on May 30th, I participated in one such protest in Minneapolis. These photos document my experience.

At Iowa State University, the conversations about racism tend to never end. However, this makes sense as the recent campus news tells us, students of color, to be aware. From the vandalism in dorms, racial slurs chalked on the sidewalks, and recently racial tension toward Asians caused by the Corona Virus 19. With racism happening over and over again to people of color, how do we deal with it? Here are my personal stories along with my personal growth in dealing with racism.

As a first-generation college student, my time here at college has not always been sunshine and rainbows. Upon arriving, I was faced with a few difficult circumstances such as:

As I got here to Iowa State, I didn’t realize how much of an impact this new environment would have on me and my identity. I come from Des Moines, Iowa, which definitely has a diverse population when in comparison to Ames Iowa. I grew up playing soccer most of my childhood and with the sport, I was able to meet many different people from different demographic groups. With that I found myself making friends with a lot of my peers, we came from different parts of world, but our love of the sport united us.