France 2015 pics

Arizona Trip!

     The “chosen” business scholars got to go to the Arizona trip the weekend of Halloween (Thursday – Sunday). We all met at the Salt Lake City international airport at 1:30 and our plane departed at about 2:30. All seventy-ish of us occupied a whole section! Once we got on the airplane we finally set off towards the Grand Canyon or Copper state (whichever you prefer). Upon arriving, we were greeted with VERY warm weather! It was nice getting out of the cold climate in Utah and going to Arizona, it was like revisiting summer.

Getting ready to leave the airport

     We got on very nice rental buses with outlets for our phones, which I thought was great. We stayed at the Marriott hotel, which was about 20 minutes from the Phoenix airport. It was nice to relax and swim in the pool at the Marriott. The business scholars had about 3 hours of free time.

     We then went to eat dinner at Lo-Lo’s Chicken & Waffles! We were warmly greeted and served. Now, I’ve had my fair share of fried chicken but Lo-Lo’s chicken was very, very good. Not to mention the drumsticks were HUGE. The waffles were great as well. I thought it was an odd combination of food but it definitely tasted great. After being stuffed with fried chicken and waffles, we all went back to the Marriott hotel and rested for the night.

Lo-Lo's chicken and waffles, I recommend eating here whenever you're in Scottsdale AZ!

Here's a picture of Buzz, my friends, and I waiting for our food!

     On Friday we got up and ate breakfast, ready to tackle the day and go on our 4 company visits. The group I was in got to go to PING and Discover, while the other group went to Swift and Potter’s House Apothecary. PING was a very great company visit. Their staff walked us through the different departments PING had and we got to see how the company operated and made their golf clubs, bags, etc.. Now, I don’t know how to golf but PING sure did make me feel like learning! It was great seeing the passion the employees had doing what they do.

     After leaving PING, we went to the Heard Museum. It’s a museum about the Native-American tribes that used to live in Phoenix. It was really neat; it also didn’t look like a museum at first glance!

    

Heard Museum

     Once we were done with lunch, we went to our last company visit, Discover! It was 95 degree weather at around this time, and we were all professionally dressed in a bus with its A/C not working properly for some unknown, reason, but we survived after about a half-hour of driving! 

     Discover showed us around their facility and then brought us into a conference room where the V.P. of fraud management talked to us about Discover and a very cool internship program they offer to college students that are interested in working there! One of the human resources employees talked to us about how she got involved with Discover with their internship program and how much she loved it. The V.P. also talked to us about why it’s so important that we know how to work with other people.

     At the end of the conference he gave us all Discover polos and t-shirts from a shop they have there! They also have a gym at their building, which I wasn’t expecting.

     After leaving Discover at around 4 we had a little bit of downtime until it was time to go kart racing at K1. It was really fun and a nice time to relax and bond with each other. We were served unlimited Dominoes (or it seemed like it), ice cream, refreshments, etc.. There was also a competition between the “best of the best”. The 10 people that got the fastest times raced against each other and Buzz was one of them! After an intense race, 3 business scholars came on top and won trophies from K1! We all then went back to the hotel to rest for Saturday.

 

Getting ready to race

Winners!

     On our final day, we had breakfast at McDonalds (yes, all 80 of us) and then went to the Sonoran Desert Museum. It was about a two hour drive, with lots of cacti to see. It was really hot and dry. The museum had a little aquarium at the beginning and then tracks that led you around the desert. I saw some coyotes too!

Panorama of the Sonoran Desert

     After leaving the museum we went back to the hotel and got ready for a luau!

It was awesome, the Polynesian food was great, especially their otai, which is a kind of juice. After a few numbers were danced to us, we all headed to the ASU vs UofU football game.

 

Business scholars being taught the Haka

It was a great game, but our Utes lost as well as some of our voices. Still Ute proud!

ASU stadium

The Business Scholars trip was amazing! Until the next one.

Asking To Use The Restroom

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because nothing eventful has happened in my life (I live a pretty boring life compared to most). However, I do want to say that I love college so far! There are so many people and new faces I see everyday, not to mention you get to leave class whenever you'd like and you also don't have to ask to use the restroom, unlike high school. It's still something I'm getting used too though; I find it weird not asking for a hall pass to use the restroom. Oh, there's also way more attractive people in college, which makes me feel more average than I already am haha!

I think it was about a week and a half ago that my friend Nancy and I took a class of 2018 Ute picture in the football field. It was a very hot day and wearing a dress shirt/slacks was not the business. Also, there was a huge line just to get water.. After waiting for about thirty minutes, we finally went out to the Rice Eccles stadium field and took our class picture, which was fun! It turns out that the picture was taken with a drone, which I thought was pretty cool because I didn't know you could use drones for that as well.

My friend and I with our class of 2018 U of U shirts! Aren't we sexy?

Rice Eccles Stadium

Today I picked up tickets to see Laverne Cox, which is the University of Utah's keynote speaker for Pride Week! I'm excited to see her, mainly because I'm a fan of Orange Is The New Black, a Netflix original series. In the show, Cox plays a transgender woman who goes to jail for.... something (I forgot)! For those of you who haven't watched OITNB, I highly recommend! It's definitely a good comedy/drama series.

SO EXCITED

Oatmeal, TRAX, and college!

     Today was my first day as a freshman at the University of Utah and man, was it something! My day started out by waking up at 5 am. Why? Because, I had to have the most important meal of the day on my first day of college (I had oatmeal for breakfast).

Boarding the TRAX at 6:15 am

      I arrived at the TRAX station at about 6:10 am. I kind of regret taking a class at 7:30 am... It's like high school all over again! Anyway, I arrived at the University at about seven and made it to my class ten minutes early. My first class wasn't bad, the instructor just went over the syllabus and what to expect from the course... nothing else, really. It also helped that one of my friends from Kearns has the same class as I do! My following class, writing 2010, also went over the syllabus.

Great view of the valley/stadium from the Marriott library!

     After that ended, I had a three hour break to do whatever I wanted. So what did I do? I went to the library of course! It's HUGE, I think it's about six stories high! It's going to take a while to learn where everything is in that maze. During my time at the library, I started to do my assigned reading, which was about forty pages. I found myself rereading passages over and over again. I guess I probably should've read a book over the summer, like The Giver, which I heard is a great read. 

J. WIllard Marriott library.. one word, big. 

     After my three hour break, I went to my last class, which is a combination of business/philosophy/humanities/ethics class. Interesting combination, but I'm looking forward to this class the most. 

The beautiful David Eccles School of Business!

     I even made a few soon-to-be-friends in some of my classes, which is a start. I'm generally not socially awkward or weird when meeting people for the first time AND my good looks always help (joking). I'm excited for my freshmen year of college and I'm looking forward to making new friends, memories, and experiences! 

I even got a free ticket to the B.o.B concert!

One last thing: there are many beautiful people in college. I feel like a solid one on a scale of one to ten in the looks department when I was walking around campus! 

GO UTES!

Underdressed

     First of all, I want to say hi to anyone that is going to be reading my blog. My bio on here contains a few things about me that come to mind when someone asks me "tell me a little about yourself", however, there's definitely a lot more about me than that (hopefully)! I'm 18, a freshmen (again, sadly) at the University of Utah planning to pick a major in the business field. My favorite color is purple, my shoe size is 10 1/2 (although I used to wear size 13 mens shoes...), I used to be 80 lbs heavier than I am now, I'm committed to not gaining the freshmen 15, I'm hispanic, a first generation college student, and I love burritos.

     I decided to start blogging because I was inspired by a friend, former teacher, and advisor of mine, Phaedra Johnson! Her blog is absolutely amazing, just like herself! I hope mine will someday shine just as bright (like a diamond (Rihanna Navy). If you like travel, theatre, hockey, and the jazz, check her blog out!

Here is a picture of Phaedra and I at my graduation ceremony.

     Today, I went up to the U on trax for a Business Scholars program orientation that began at 9:40 am. It was a horrible waking up earlier than I have to to go to work on my day off. I miss the days I could just sleep in a.k.a. when I was a baby. After riding the UTA Trax for 45 minutes, I arrived at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts plaza and immediately realized that I was terribly underdressed! I read the email the night before saying to dress casual, but apparently another one was sent to dress business casual. There's not a better feeling in the world than wearing jeans, vans, and a t-shirt next to a guy who's wearing slacks and a tie! Anyway, the orientation lasted until 3:30 pm. It was definitely an eye opener. Out of about 3300 students beginning at the U at the school of business this year, only 142 of them are in the program, which definitely gave me a boost in my self-esteem! I am excited to be studying different majors such as marketing, finance, and business management (just to name a few) this year AND travel domestically to Phoenix, AZ and San Francisco, CA. Oh, and did I mention the international trip to Paris and Amsterdam this upcoming summer? STOKED!

The director of the program also gave us a high quality backpack to each scholar!