Parent students face challenges while attending LBCC

Students who are parents face additional challenges in college by learning how to balance family life and academics.

“I want to show my son no matter how late it is, it’s never too late to start it. Just never give up,” said Amanda Turcott. Turcott’s best friend, Lonnie Eyler, later added, “Higher education leads to better opportunities, a better career, and better pay.”

Turcott, a single parent of her five-year old son Tyson, is attending her second year at LBCC to complete her bachelor degree in Culinary Arts. Lonnie Eyler, who has a four-year old daughter Nakia, is also a sophomore at LBCC pursuing her bachelor degree in business.

Unlike other traditional students, Turcott and Eyler face more challenges when going to college. Working hard for them not only means being a good student and doing homework, it also means finding balance between school and family.

Between school schedules, family, childcare, after-school activities, group meetings, and on campus involvements, Turcott and Eyler are trying their best to balance them all and avoid being another stereotype of how student-parents can achieve an education.

At first, Turcott came back to school and finished her GED. This brought her potential to the surface and she realized how much more she could do to provide her son a better life. Eyler also started attending college with the same motivation. She simply wants the best for her daughter no matter what it takes.

However, to commute between parenting and attending college at the same time is not an easy job, and many parents are facing similar situations here at LBCC.

Time management and financial conditions are the two major challenges. Parents often work part-time. This leaves them no time to attend school activities and group projects. In many cases, parents sometimes have to sacrifice spending time with families to make more money.

“It’s easily $2000 every month,” Turcott said. Eyler agreed. Both Turcott and Eyler gave up on working during school time, and rely on financial aid because they don’t want to eliminate the time to spend with their children.

“Finding your own personal time to do homework is my biggest challenge," Turcott said.

 She always makes sure that she is on top of school work and not neglecting her son. He is at an age where he needs her undivided attention, said Turcott.

“I work in summers to support our living expenses," she said.

Their children Tyson and Nakia are preschool age and enrolled in Kidoco Head Start. This is a free on-campus education program to assist families on early child development. It is divided into an "early" Head Start program and the Head Start program.

Head Start has four classrooms on the LBCC Albany campus. With the “open door” policy, parents can check on their kids anytime. The building also opens an area for parents to do homework and relax from the day. The early Head Start family advocate serves 10 families at her home. In total, LBCC's Head Start program serves 72 children.

“We are federally and state funded, so we prioritize LBCC students, but also reach out to the community,” said Christina Nese, the site supervisor at Kidco Head Start. “We use creative curriculum, and really focus on education development. We also serve kids with special needs.” 

“Being a parent student is hard, but just remember to never be afraid to ask for help,” Turcott said. “The staff and secretary here are wonderful.”

Turcott and Eyler are thankful for Kidco Head Start.

However, Turcott is worried about what's next, “Tyson is five right now, and he will start kindergarten next fall. I will have to work harder or maybe get a part-time job to pay for child day care, so I can still be a full-time student here and complete my degree as soon as possible.”

At a glance:
Kidco Head Start
Phone: 541- 451-1581
Website: www.kidcoheadstart.org
E-mail: cnese@kidcoheadstart.org
Address: Periwinkle Center, 6500 Pacific Blvd. SW, Albany, OR 97321

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People are having dinner in Kimhoa's Kitchen in Corvallis on Thursday . 

The owner swipes a credit card for customers.  

Movie Review Gravity

Gravity is a 3-D science fiction movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón was released on October 4^th, 2013 in the U.S. Before it was aired, the trailer and propaganda were everywhere. It was impossible to surf the internet without seeing clicks of the film. Like usual, the trailer was silently playing on YouTube’s home page and was on the trending page. It also played several times before the actual YouTube videos were played. Normally I would hit the skip button. However, the intensity drove me right into it.

The trailer begins with words in black and white that appeared on screen slowly and silently: “ At 372 MILES ABOVE THE EARTH. THERE IS NOTHING TO CARRY SOUND. NO AIR PRESSURE. NO OXYGEN. LIFE IN SPACE IS IMPOSSIBLE.” The words are just as peaceful as the space. Then the sudden explosion breaks the peace and the disaster begins.

The entire movie is 91 minutes long and casting Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Bullock and Clooney played as the astronauts who survived from the orbit destruction.

Sandra Bullock played Dr. Ryan Stone, the female mission specialism exploring her first space shuttle mission. George Clooney was the male astronaut Lieutenant Matt Kowalski. Two of them are on a space mission of repairing the HST, Hubble Space Telescope. When Dr. Stone was trying to set the last screw on during a spacewalk, a cloud of debris of the Russian satellite started flying toward them with very high speed. The missile strike of the Russian satellite has caused a chain reaction of a debris disaster.

Since it’s a space drama, let’s throw in some physics here. The visualization is amazing in this movie featuring Newton’s first law of motion: “ Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.” This means the object that is at rest will stay at rest and the object that is in motion will not change its velocity and direction unless an external force acts upon it. When Dr. Stone unattached herself from the space shuttle debris, she was tuning up and down constantly in circles into the space. This scene created the sensation among the audience. Despite the fact my friend sitting next to me was holding on my arm for the entire movie, the audience that night in the theater were nice enough to not start a screaming competition. However, although fans enjoyed every shocking scientific aspect of the movie, many scientist were offended by the inaccurate physics information. Lisa Respers France published a article on CNN webpage titled “5 things that couldn’t happen in ‘Gravity’ ” Several scientist compared real life science with the movie’s in this article They even mentioned that Kowalaski’s equipment is outdated. One thing I had trouble with when I was watching the movie was when the two astronauts hiked a journey the other two space stations. Not only they could measure the exact location and direction, it almost seemed easy for them to just flow to the Russian Space station. Apparently, some scientists are with on this. “As we recall from bitter memory, the Hubble and the space station are in vastly different orbits,” Dennis Overbye wrote. “Getting from one to the other requires so much energy that not even space shuttles had enough fuel to do it. The telescope is 353 miles high, in an orbit that keeps it near the Equator; the space station is about 100 miles lower, in an orbit that takes it far north, over Russia. To have the movie astronauts Matt Kowalski and Ryan Stone zip over to the space station would be like having a pirate tossed overboard in the Caribbean swim to London.” However, some sci-fi fans out there might be annoyed of arguing real science behind a science fiction movie.

While we are blown away by the amazing displays, it’s important to noting the messages sent out from the film. Through the movie, the director Alfonso Cuarón connected cadences tightly. The intense scenes of severe scenarios were followed one after another. Before Dr. Stone actually came out from the water and started walking, it was hard to tell whether she would survive in the end. After all the adversities, the film ensured the positive message of not giving up and overcoming. It kind of reminds me of the movie Life of Pi, the story that will make you believe in God again. To survive from a space disaster is almost incomparable. I cannot think of anything else that can be discussed on the same level. Also, I appreciate the fact that the female scientist was the survivor in the end.

Other blogs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bharath-gopalaswamy/space-debris_b_4136154.html
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/07/showbiz/movies/gravity-scientists/ (source)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/azum-z-ali/orbital-debris_b_4149847.html

My Neighborhood

Hannah Babcock and her boyfriend sale beautiful flowers in downtown Corvallis 

Hannah Babcock

CityHall in downtown Corvallis

Cecilia Zias was reading an origami book at The Book Bin in Corvallis on Wednesday.