Latest / WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio / Talk Line: Jim Grot & Jazmin Martinez share updates from Sauk Valley Community College

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Talk Line: Jim Grot & Jazmin Martinez share updates from Sauk Valley Community College · WIXN AM 1460 - Shaw Local Radio

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Speaker 1: Good morning, Sock Valley. You've joined the Waking crew here
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Speaker 1: on FM ninety five one and a fourteen sixty WIXN.
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Speaker 1: It's eight fifteen and that means it's time for talk
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Speaker 1: line and today I'm joined in the booth by our
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Speaker 1: good friends from the Soak Valley Community College. It's Jim
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Speaker 1: Grow and Jasmine Martinez. How are you both good? How
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Speaker 1: are you?
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Speaker 2: I'm I'm very well.
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Speaker 1: It's been nice and warm in here. I've been sheltering
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Speaker 1: in place against the cold weather.
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Speaker 2: Was morning.
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Speaker 3: This is We've had this kind of nice cold stretch
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Speaker 3: going on here for a while, but now it's gonna
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Speaker 3: warm up and feel like summer.
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Speaker 2: Next week. We've hit twenty degrees. We're gonna hit thirty soon.
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Speaker 1: It's absolutely it's gonna feel like a heat wave given.
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Speaker 2: What we put up with.
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Speaker 3: Yes, that's what's been Actually, I enjoyed this about living
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Speaker 3: in the Midwest is like when it gets to like
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Speaker 3: thirty degrees, all of a sudden, you feel like it's
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Speaker 3: a heat wave. Yes, you're walking around without a code
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Speaker 3: on and things like that.
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Speaker 2: I just love it. I've got my grill ready to
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Speaker 2: come out this right.
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Speaker 1: Well, you guys wanted to start off today talking about
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Speaker 1: Explore SoC.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so one to talk about explore SoC, which is
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Speaker 3: basically it's an opportunity for students and it can be
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Speaker 3: high school, it can be non traditional students to come
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Speaker 3: and literally explore SoC. It gives you a chance to
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Speaker 3: listen to staff present about financial aids, scholarships, student activities, athletics,
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Speaker 3: and it's about a ninety minute presentation. A different staff
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Speaker 3: come in and they talk. But it just gives people
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Speaker 3: an opportunity to learn more about the college and decide
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Speaker 3: whether or not Sock's a good fit for them and.
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Speaker 2: That kind of thing.
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Speaker 3: So and it's just a good time.
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Speaker 2: I want.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to talk a little bit about SoC and
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Speaker 3: what SOCC is good about and why you should come
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Speaker 3: and explore SoC if you are undecided, if you want
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Speaker 3: to go to college, if you're going to go to
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Speaker 3: college but you still don't know what you're going to
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Speaker 3: major in, and that kind of stuff. In SOCC is
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Speaker 3: a is a great place for those who again are undecided.
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Speaker 3: And I want to tell the story of like my daughter.
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Speaker 3: My daughter, as an undecided student, had no clue.
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Speaker 2: What she wanted to do.
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Speaker 3: She thought she wanted to go to college. She wasn't
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Speaker 3: sure when we're like, you know what, just a tend
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Speaker 3: SoC It's a great place to go. It's a great
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Speaker 3: place to decide is college right for you? Because maybe
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Speaker 3: college isn't College isn't right for everybody, right, And we're like,
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Speaker 3: you know, give it a chance. Go to SoC see
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Speaker 3: what it's like. And so that she's now a sophomore.
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Speaker 3: She's gonna finish her associates this year, and literally just
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Speaker 3: in the last few months, like a light bulb turned
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Speaker 3: on and was like, you know what, Now I know what,
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Speaker 3: Like I'm going to go into marketing. She wants to
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Speaker 3: follow and her father she did actually does not want
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Speaker 3: to find that's what I do. But it was not
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Speaker 3: something that really interested her for a long time. But
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Speaker 3: she's creative, and we always thought that she'd be in
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Speaker 3: the art field or she wanted to go into baking
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Speaker 3: and start a business and that because you know, I
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Speaker 3: was an entrepreneur through most of my adulthood and she
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Speaker 3: was kind of in that same way. But then just
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Speaker 3: all of a sudden, something clicked and now she's going
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Speaker 3: to transfer, and so SoC just gave her that time.
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Speaker 3: I'm that she needed to figure out what it is
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Speaker 3: that she wanted to do. And I think if she
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Speaker 3: would have gone to a university right away, she probably
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Speaker 3: would have dropped out and just been like, you know what, No,
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Speaker 3: this is too much for me. I can't you know,
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Speaker 3: just life is too hectic. I think it was good
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Speaker 3: to be home. It's good to kind of have that
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Speaker 3: less pressure and all that kind of stuff. So, but
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Speaker 3: SOCC is great for undecided students. It's also great if
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Speaker 3: you know, if you know, you want to get your
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Speaker 3: bachelor's degree, but you're not ready to leave home, or
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Speaker 3: the expense of going off to college.
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Speaker 2: It's expensive to go off to college.
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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so that's another, you know, another reason to
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Speaker 3: come and explore SOCC. And then also if those students
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Speaker 3: who college is not right for them, And we have
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Speaker 3: lots of programs which I'll talk about next too or
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Speaker 3: in just a little bit here. We have lots of
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Speaker 3: programs that are not associate degrees or transfer degrees and
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Speaker 3: that kind of stuff to where you go right into
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Speaker 3: the right workforce within as little as six weeks. It
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Speaker 3: could be six weeks, you know, a semester, two semesters.
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Speaker 3: We have lots of programs welding nursing things like that
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Speaker 3: that you can go right in the workforce, but you
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Speaker 3: need a little extra training to be able to kind
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Speaker 3: of get that, to get that pay you know up
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Speaker 3: there and.
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Speaker 2: That kind of stuff.
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Speaker 3: So come in Explore SoC that is it's Monday February sixteenth,
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Speaker 3: so just about a week and a half, Monday February sixteenth,
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Speaker 3: from ten to eleven thirty. And it's in the Riverview
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Speaker 3: Conference Room, which is like smack dab in the middle
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Speaker 3: of the college on the first floor facing the river.
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Speaker 3: But you do have to RSVP for this one, and
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Speaker 3: that's at SVCC dot edu slash visit, so you just
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Speaker 3: go on there. You just fill out a little bit
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Speaker 3: of information, but that registers you for that Explore SoC event.
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Speaker 2: So come out and see us for that. Absolutely check
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Speaker 2: that out.
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Speaker 1: I tell folks all the time because I I this
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Speaker 1: resonates with me because I was an undecided SoC student, right,
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Speaker 1: That's how I started off. I actually didn't even go
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Speaker 1: for for journalism or media. It was for physical therapy. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: you wouldn't tell it. You wouldn't tell it now, so
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Speaker 1: many years sitting behind a booth. But I used to
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Speaker 1: be a personal trainer and I thought, you know, I
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Speaker 1: need to take this to some next progression in its career.
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Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't really know what it is.
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Speaker 1: I guess physical therapy feels like it right. It felt
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Speaker 1: grown up, but I had to get my gen eds
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Speaker 1: out of the way, so and luckily for me, by
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Speaker 1: the end of the second semester, I had done enough writing.
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Speaker 1: I found that I really really liked it. Had some
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Speaker 1: professors from SOCC and I love telling the story. Karen
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Speaker 1: oblay Like had approached me about writing. It was like,
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Speaker 1: I really think you should consider doing something with this,
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Speaker 1: and I was like, well, Stephen King's got writing covered.
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Speaker 1: What am I going to do? And She's like, well,
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Speaker 1: just think about it. And it led me to have
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Speaker 1: a conversation at the newspaper and that was just turned
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Speaker 1: into an assignment, and that turned into me saying, honey,
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Speaker 1: do you mind if I changed my major? I know
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Speaker 1: we had other plans, right, Yeah, And here I am
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Speaker 1: and I couldn't be happier.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is.
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Speaker 3: It's sock gives students that opportunity to just, I don't know,
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Speaker 3: let life settle down a little bit, because high school
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Speaker 3: is just there's you know, so many things are going
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Speaker 3: on and things like that, or if you got out
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Speaker 3: of high school and you didn't go right into college
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Speaker 3: and you're working, it's like work is busy, family's busy,
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Speaker 3: all that kind of stuff, and so it just gives
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Speaker 3: you an opportunity, souk is that a little bit of
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Speaker 3: time to kind of let you settle down and all
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Speaker 3: of a sudden you kind of explore a little bit.
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Speaker 3: And college gives you a little bit more time to
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Speaker 3: figure out what you have to do or what you
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Speaker 3: want to do, instead of high school where it's just
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Speaker 3: a little bit more like you gotta do this, you
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Speaker 3: gotta do this again.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it really really does because you're getting the same
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Speaker 1: great college education. You're getting that out of the way,
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Speaker 1: you know, whether it's your gen eds or or what
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Speaker 1: have you. But I mean, like when I was done
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Speaker 1: with SoC I went on to NIU and had I
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Speaker 1: started it and you and I mean, and I use
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Speaker 1: fantastic school, you know, loved going there, But I absolutely
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Speaker 1: know what you mean. The hustle and bustle of the
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Speaker 1: pressure of it and having not been decided and then
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Speaker 1: that mounting pressure of oh, like I'm spending all this
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Speaker 1: money and all this time and what am I doing
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Speaker 1: it and I don't know, you kind of feel guilty
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Speaker 1: after you Yeah, money so to be home and have
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Speaker 1: that that calmer feeling. But still no, I was making
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Speaker 1: progression towards something.
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Speaker 2: It was great.
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Speaker 1: And I always tell my kid, sooner or later, it
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Speaker 1: does not matter if you don't know, go do the
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Speaker 1: things that you've got to do anyways, because there's always
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Speaker 1: those prerequisites you've got to knock out of the way,
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Speaker 1: and sooner or later you're going to have a conversation
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Speaker 1: with someone, You're going to have a class you like
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Speaker 1: and talk to a professor, and that light bulb is
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Speaker 1: going to go off and you're going to start going
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Speaker 1: down the path.
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Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, so yeah, no appreciate that.
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Speaker 1: Speaking of paths and other great things going on, the
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Speaker 1: Amboy Clipper Challenge.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have the we have the boy excuse
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Speaker 3: me and Boy Clipper Challenge coming up on February twenty fifth.
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Speaker 3: There's going to be an open house on February twenty fifth.
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Speaker 3: So the Amboy Clipper Challenge is you know, we've talked
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Speaker 3: about the Impact program many times on this show, and
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Speaker 3: the Impact what we're doing is fundraising for you know,
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Speaker 3: we're going around to all the towns in our district
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Speaker 3: and doing a fundraiser kind of to make up the
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Speaker 3: money that we need to support the impact program. And
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Speaker 3: we're we have a goal of six hundred thousand dollars
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Speaker 3: for Amboy and so we're going to have an open
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Speaker 3: house on the February on February twenty fifth, there's going
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Speaker 3: to be food and drinks and all that kind of
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Speaker 3: stuff to have the community learn about how to donate
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Speaker 3: to the Clipper Challenge. And so far we've raised forty
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Speaker 3: thousand dollars, over forty thousand dollars up to that six
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Speaker 3: hundred thousand dollars goal, and we have a ten thousand
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Speaker 3: dollars matching challenge right now that's going through April first,
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Speaker 3: where obviously every dollar that's you know that you donate,
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Speaker 3: so your twenty dollars becomes forty dollars, your one hundred
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Speaker 3: dollars becomes two hundred. There's an anonymous donor that has
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Speaker 3: a ten thousand dollars match going on, and there's going
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Speaker 3: to be an amboy An open house for the Clipper
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Speaker 3: Challenge on February twenty fifth. So we just go to
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Speaker 3: our our foundation page SBCC dot edu and just look
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Speaker 3: in foundation. There will be some details in there about
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Speaker 3: where it's at and that kind of stuff. I know
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Speaker 3: it starts at six o'clock and I don't remember I
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Speaker 3: didn't write down where it's at. Shame on me, but yeah,
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Speaker 3: check it out on our on a foundation page. So
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Speaker 3: but then when we were talking about explore SoC we
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Speaker 3: also have the ct This February is CTE month.
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Speaker 2: If you didn't know that, I did not know.
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Speaker 3: But in CTE month is its career in technical education.
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Speaker 3: And when I started at soccer, I was always I
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Speaker 3: mean it took me out, like what is a CTE,
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Speaker 3: But like I did not know what ct is. But
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Speaker 3: it's career in technical education. And those are the things
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Speaker 3: where if you're not going to go on for your associates,
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Speaker 3: your a bachelor's degree, those are the kinds of certificate programs,
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Speaker 3: just programs that you would go into that will get
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Speaker 3: you into.
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Speaker 2: The workforce at a faster pace.
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Speaker 3: Things like there's healthcare, so our nursing program is a
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Speaker 3: CTE program. The rad tech, criminal justice, multi craft, agriculture,
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Speaker 3: computer information systems, early childhood education, and welding, all of
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Speaker 3: those things are CTE programs and basically those are things
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Speaker 3: where you just you kind of go and you just
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Speaker 3: fe because on those classes, that's it. You don't have
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Speaker 3: to take all the gen ads and all that kind
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Speaker 3: of stuff. You just focus on those main classes. And
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Speaker 3: there's going to be an open house on February twenty
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Speaker 3: sixth Thursday, February twenty six, from six to eight, and
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Speaker 3: that's just you go into the West Mall, the Sterling
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Speaker 3: side of campus, and when you walk in there, there
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Speaker 3: will be people to greet you and they'll just point
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Speaker 3: you in the direction to go, so you can just
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Speaker 3: if you want to look at welding, they'll just send
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Speaker 3: you right over to welding.
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Speaker 2: You can look at the equipment.
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Speaker 3: We've got robotic welders, we've got just traditional welding, that
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Speaker 3: kind of stuff. But you can talk to the professors,
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Speaker 3: see the equipment that we have for all those kinds
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Speaker 3: of things, and it just gives you an opportunity to
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Speaker 3: see what that life could be like. You know, if
10:38
Speaker 3: it's kind of like, no, I don't want to go
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Speaker 3: to college, you know, but the ct of programs which
10:43
Speaker 3: I hosted that at college, but it's not your traditional
10:45
Speaker 3: again Bachelor program Associates program that kind of stuff. So
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Speaker 3: CTE open house February twenty six from six to eight
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Speaker 3: o'clock at.
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Speaker 2: The on the West Mall of campus there So.
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Speaker 3: And then I just wanted to do well and I forgot,
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Speaker 3: and I know we're kind of run time, but I
11:00
Speaker 3: didn't get you get to introduce my friend over here,
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Speaker 3: Jasmine Martinez. No, she's our marketing coordinator out of the
11:08
Speaker 3: college and she started back.
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Speaker 2: When Jason last April. I started at the end of
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Speaker 2: the month April twenty.
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Speaker 3: Eighth, so she doesn't have quite a year under her belt,
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Speaker 3: but she has.
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Speaker 2: Been coming fantastic.
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Speaker 1: She hit the ground running. I mean she keeps me
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Speaker 1: up to date. All the press releases that come out
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Speaker 1: of Sock they come to us. And press releases are
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Speaker 1: such a cool thing because that for especially like journalism school,
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Speaker 1: when I switched over to that track, that was like
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Speaker 1: the basic building block of like how do you take
11:37
Speaker 1: a beginner story right. We'd get a press release that
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Speaker 1: would come into the college newsroom and it would editor
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Speaker 1: were to sign it out and they say, Okay, you
11:44
Speaker 1: need to verify this information. You need to do some research,
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Speaker 1: add some additional useful information, and get the corresponding interviews
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Speaker 1: if there's any that come out of that, and that's
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Speaker 1: where it would start until they felt like you kind
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Speaker 1: of had the basics under you. So I always appreciate.
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Speaker 2: Ate that jest. Yeah, awesome.
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Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad that I can send those to
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Speaker 3: you and just you know, share all the news that's
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Speaker 3: coming out of SoC.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: She has been absolutely fantastic as a fantastic addition to
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Speaker 3: the team.
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Speaker 2: She's been wonderful.
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Speaker 3: She studied graphic design, so she helps us out with
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Speaker 3: some of that stuff too, and so she has been
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Speaker 3: absolutely wonderful. But I wanted her to I wanted to
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Speaker 3: bring her along to just see what this part is like.
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Speaker 3: And if I ever can't make it to one of
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Speaker 3: these that Jasmine will kind of fill in for me,
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Speaker 3: so you'll hear her voice everything.
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Speaker 1: We'll look forward to having you share all the information
12:28
Speaker 1: because there's always so much coming out of SoC Thank you. Yeah,
12:32
Speaker 1: always so many great programs, and we still have enough time.
12:34
Speaker 1: I want you to share about the reup progress.
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Speaker 3: So we have the Reup program that I just wanted
12:37
Speaker 3: to kind of get out there. So the Reup program
12:39
Speaker 3: is something to where we have a company that is
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Speaker 3: reaching out to students who attended SoC but never finished
12:47
Speaker 3: their certificate or their degree or whatever it.
12:50
Speaker 2: May have been.
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Speaker 3: And so they call, they'll call the email, they'll do
12:54
Speaker 3: all sorts of stuff saying that they're calling on our behalf.
12:57
Speaker 3: And so we just wanted to let people know that
12:59
Speaker 3: this is a legitimate thing. This is not a scam,
13:01
Speaker 3: This is not spam. This is a company that this
13:04
Speaker 3: is all they do. They talk to colleges, they get
13:08
Speaker 3: the list of students who used to attend SoC and
13:13
Speaker 3: they reach out to them try and get them back
13:15
Speaker 3: in to finish their degrees and that kind of thing.
13:17
Speaker 3: So you'll have a company that might reach out to
13:20
Speaker 3: you if you attended SOCK before that it is a
13:23
Speaker 3: legitimate company and they will take you in the steps
13:25
Speaker 3: to get your back going again. They'll get you in
13:27
Speaker 3: touch with admissions and advisors and that kind of stuff.
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Speaker 3: So we've already had I think they said over one
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Speaker 3: hundred students that have reached back out to us that
13:36
Speaker 3: you might have had thirty forty fifty hours but didn't
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Speaker 3: finish their associates and now they're.
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Speaker 2: Hopefully going to come back and finish their associates. So yes,
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Speaker 2: I'll let you know about that.
13:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely do it. You will not regret it. It's an
13:49
Speaker 1: amazing feeling once you finish that.
13:51
Speaker 2: And yeah, just just do it. That's why.
13:55
Speaker 1: See if you can steal that slogan from Nike, just
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Speaker 1: do it well, Jim Jasmin, we're out of time today,
14:03
Speaker 1: but I want to thank you both so much for
14:04
Speaker 1: coming in and sharing this information. For all the wonderful
14:08
Speaker 1: work that you folks do out there. Go to these events,
14:11
Speaker 1: inquire about the Impact program, folks. If you haven't heard
14:15
Speaker 1: me talk about it enough, I'm not going to stop.
14:17
Speaker 1: It's just a wonderful program helping support our students here.
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Speaker 1: So guys, thank you so much. We look forward to
14:23
Speaker 1: your future updates.