I’m a 1st-gen, Chicana, transfer student from the Central Valley. I’m studying Media Studies at UC Berkeley, to equip myself with tools and knowledge that will help me engage with communities effectively. Coming from a family of collective immigrants, I believe I inherited a passion for helping communities. My desire for community participation and equity fuels my ambition to make a difference in the social justice sector. With that being said, I am currently exploring spaces with a curiosity and an open mind where I can make an impact and find community. Here on campus, I’m part of several communities and organizations such as Miller Scholars, NavCal and the Internal House, where I work. As a senior, I am looking for spaces I can work in post-grad that align with my values and curiosity.
Being a Media Studies major, I have developed a fond interest in media’s effects on societies. In particular, I am interested in pipelines created by the media for specific populations and different sectors. Through Miller Scholars, I researched the role media plays in influencing career choices for high school students and its correlation to their socioeconomic backgrounds. Through this research, it has been fascinating to learn about how first-generation students get different content on social media than students coming from more affluent backgrounds.
This research has caused me to question how in a world of fast-paced technology media is affecting our psychology and sense of belonging through spaces such as education/careers, recreational areas, consumerism, relationships, and citizenship. I believe that if we have more awareness of how media contributes towards pipelines, it would be easier to know how to use media to get folks to make informed decisions for themselves. Through this project, I’ve grown to admire research as I’ve discovered it to be an intimate experience where knowledge and data lead to social changes.
