{"id":939,"date":"2020-04-13T22:50:51","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T02:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/?p=939"},"modified":"2020-04-13T22:50:51","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T02:50:51","slug":"josefa-sotelo-buffalo-state-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/josefa-sotelo-buffalo-state-college\/","title":{"rendered":"Josefa Sotelo, Buffalo State College"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I am a freshman at Buffalo State. I am a political science major from Queens, NY. I came to Buffalo State planning on majoring in political science because I\u2019ve always been interested in politics and watch the news a lot, though it was comedy shows like the Daily Show that first got me into politics. I want to go to law school so I can practice public interest law, serving clients who can\u2019t afford a lawyer. This means, of all my siblings, I will be the odd one out\u2014the only non-accountant!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went to the High School of Environmental Studies in Manhattan, where the emphasis was on environmental science. That got me interested in environmental studies. I decided on Buffalo State because I definitely didn\u2019t want to stay in the city for college and wanted a change of scenery so I could focus on studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a freshman, textbooks have been a concern because, even though rentals are sometimes an inexpensive options, it\u2019s first come first served. The bookstore is almost always out of rentals when I go to buy them, which means I have to pay full price. Luckily this term, I managed to get a few rentals for $130, but many classes have multiple books that are hardly ever used. You can\u2019t really tell what books you\u2019re actually going to need, and it becomes an expensive guessing game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not working at the moment because, even though I qualify for federal work-study, there aren\u2019t nearly enough on-campus jobs for all the students who qualify. That means I have to look for off-campus jobs. Given Buffalo weather and not having a car, my choices are limited. It\u2019s important to have a job because of how expensive college life is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With TAP and all the scholarships I received, I still pay about $5000 toward tuition per semester. My family is paying these costs out of pocket, and I currently can\u2019t register because I haven\u2019t paid for the previous term. I can\u2019t even look at my GPA if I wanted to transfer because everything is frozen until I pay. Courses for my major could get filled before I have time to pay up and register. Financial aid advising needs to be clearer so students know where they stand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a freshman at Buffalo State. I am a political science major from Queens, NY. I came to Buffalo State planning on majoring in political science because I\u2019ve always been interested in politics and watch the news a lot, though it was comedy shows like the Daily Show that first got me into politics. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[158,15,20,126,89],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buffalo-state-college","tag-advisement","tag-tap","tag-textbooks","tag-tuition","tag-work-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirgstudents.org\/storybank\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}