HoC: Alexis "Danny" Vega
Humans of Chaffey
Alexis “Danny” Vega, Photo by Dale Weimholt
Alexis “Danny” Vega has been a student at Chaffey College for two years now. He is currently majoring in Sociology and is planning to take his education in Sociology further to a four year university after he gets his associate's degree from Chaffey College. He is a bright student who gets his work done and makes sure that he finishes what he starts. However, being a good student was not one of his strengths for many years. Danny’s childhood consisted of difficulties in the classroom and with learning. He felt angry at the world and would have meltdowns over things that bothered him. If he answered a question in class wrong, he would start crying because he would feel embarrassed. If someone said something he didn't like, he would get extremely angry and start yelling. Danny did not have any friends either because no one wanted to hangout with him; his problems with being a good student and well-behaved child ended up making it hard for other kids to want to be friends with him.
His home life without a father did not make it easier. Danny was raised by his mother because his parents separated when he was very young. Even when his dad came by to visit, Danny was treated poorly by him which often made his state of mind worse. Danny often felt like an outsider in school and felt that he had no value to anyone, even himself. He was struggling in his classes at school and having a hard time with his behavioral problems.
Danny later met a boy at school named Max. Max was one of the first people that Danny felt that he could open up to. The two of them ended up becoming good friends, Max never judged Danny and he would always hear what Danny had to say. Over time Danny became a little more comfortable with the people around him and made some progress with his behavior. Middle school came around and he still was having anger problems when things did not go his way or when he felt embarrassed by something. After being pulled aside by one of his teachers and seriously talked to, he knew that he had to really clean up his act:
“It was like a slap in the face.”
Before being spoken to by his teacher, he felt like his mom and past teachers would either pity him or ignore him. He would always get let off easily and never really had a serious engagement with an adult about how he acted. He decided to start making progress on his own and become a better version of himself.
Then high school came around, Danny felt prepared to be a better student by this time and was ready to take on a new experience. Naturally, academics had always been a struggle for him and something he never enjoyed doing. Even though he was a much better behaved person and had good friendships, he was still having a hard time passing his classes. Since he was attending Montclair High School, he discovered a two-year scholarship program to Chaffey College called the Montclair To College scholarship program (also known as MTC program) and used that to motivate himself to get better grades. Some of the requirements for the MTC program are to do five hours of community service and graduate high school with college credit.
Since he knew he needed to pass all of his classes with C’s or better, he began taking his grades much more seriously and began doing all of his work. In an interview previous to the recorded one he had said, “I didn't want to do it, but I knew I had to."
He knew that his mom would not be able to help him attend college or support him in any way so he took this opportunity with the Montclair To College program to get a good start in life after graduating high school.
After signing up for the MTC program during his freshman year of high school, he committed to his classes and doing what he had to do to keep the MTC scholarship. Which meant that he had to attend monthly workshops, finish five service hours each school year and maintain at least a 2.0 GPA. Danny began doing things he would rarely ever do like attend after-school tutoring, make up failed assignments and do extra credit projects to ensure he would pass his classes. He would often do his yearly service hours at the local Youth Center in Montclair because he knew they always had something for him to do. Not only did the Montclair To College Scholarship requirements help him get two financially sponsored years at Chaffey, he was able to make a lot of new friends and meet a lot of new people through the activities he would do. By the end of high school, Danny was a much better person and student compared to who he was when he was growing up. He learned how to control his temper and outbursts, became very a determined student and gained a lot of great relationships with people.
Danny graduated from Montclair High School in 2019 and began attending Chaffey College soon after. He was not really sure of what he was going to be majoring in after he transfers out of Chaffey and into a four year university. During his first year at Chaffey College he was mainly focused on passing his classes and earning his AA. He was also hoping to find a subject that he would enjoy enough to hopefully major in. After some time of searching he is now a Sociology major at Chaffey College. He came to this decision after taking a Family Life class during his first year in College. Danny liked it enough to talk to his counselor and ask what major involves that line of study. Right now Sociology is Danny’s interest and is what he hopes to study more when he transfers to a University.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Chaffey has alternated their education program to online schooling. Danny’s previous experience with public learning is much more suitable for him rather than at-home learning. He personally prefers the classroom learning style because he has a much easier time taking in information when he is physically in the classroom with other people. Education online is a strange experience for him, Danny even says that the last time he took an online class was in high school during a summer program which was a big struggle for him. Although it is a hard experience for Danny, he is still doing a great job in his classes and has gone through similar learning struggles before. He is confident that he is still on track to graduate with his AA and transfer to a University to get his bachelor's degree.