Howdy, Frisco A&M Club!

My first semester as an Aggie has been a world wind of an adventure. Never have I imagined to experience and learn about so many things in a short amount of time both inside the classroom and out. Now I truly understand the hype about being an Aggie! The traditions, family atmosphere, the classes, and of course the football is addicting!

My aggie journey started at Fish camp. When I arrived, I felt like a bad Ag because I did not know anything about the Aggie traditions! I didn’t even know who to do the freshmen wildcat correctly! Since I was a first generation Aggie, I didn’t know if I would fit into the Aggie family. After four wonderful days of Fish camp, I felt like I was truly apart of the Aggie family. Fish Camp thought me that despite everyone’s different backgrounds we all had one thing in common. We were all Aggies, and know we were all each other’s’ “family”. I loved fish camp so much that I want to apply to be a Fish Camp counselor!

After my first week of classes, I was overwhelmed with organization applications and all the options I had. I felt as if I was one amongst the masses. I didn’t know where I belonged at TAMU. I ended up applying for 6 different Freshmen Leadership Organizations (FLOs) due to the encouragement of my DG “Dad”. I didn’t even know what FLOs were before I came to TAMU. I also auditioned to be on the ballroom dancing performance team. Remarkably I made the ballroom dancing team and got invited to interviews for all 6 FLOS! My ballroom dancing team has allowed me to compete against other colleges and perform around the College Station/Bryan area. We competed at Rice University in the fall and plan to go to TU (sssssss!) to compete in the spring! Along with joining the ballroom dancing team, I also ended up choosing to be a part of a FLO called MSC Aggie Leaders of Tomorrow (ALOT). Being a part of ALOT has brought me so many opportunities to grow as a leader, to impact the community, and to make friends.

I am fortunate to say that my first A&M football game was in the brand new Kyle Stadium. I am also very fortunate to have experienced the 1^st game in Kyle field from the 1^st deck! Upon arriving at TAMU I learned how connections can allow you to experience some pretty cool things. One of my friends from high school is in the Corps of Cadets, and took my other high school friends and I as his dates for the first game! I pretty sure he was the only Corps Freshmen with three dates! Although going to Football games and attending midnight yells are great traditions, they aren’t my favorite. Silver Taps is my favorite tradition because it allowed me to feel so close to my fellow Aggies and the Aggies that we have lost.

During my semester at A&M, I got to take 13 hours of courses. My favorite and hardest two courses were Cultural Geography and Biology. Although my first semester was challenging academically, I learned a lot of interesting information.

Thank you Frisco A&M Club for contributing to my first semester as an Aggie. It was an experience I will never forget. I look forward to the next semesters to come!

Sincerely,

Dionne Mitcham

Dear Frisco A&M Club Scholarship Committee,

What an amazing feeling it is to be an Aggie! I have had an amazing first semester and I’d like to share some of my experiences with you.

It all started with Fish Camp! I attended session F which returned the night before move in day, which was perfect timing to get me even more excited for my A&M experiences to begin. Fish Camp was absolutely unbelievable-a little awkward at first as I’d heard it was, but by the end of those 4 days I already felt I was even more a part of the Aggie family. I met so many people during Fish Camp that as I was walking around campus, I was constantly running into many people I actually knew already.

Gig ’em week was another awesome experience-1 had the opportunity to meet even more people and to see what college life at A&M was really like before all the schoolwork kicked in.

This semester’s classes were very tough; I took Calculus for Biology and Medicine, Honors Chemistry, Biology, and Health & Fitness-Yoga. Studying for the first round of tests was nerve-wracking because I had no idea about what to expect out of a college test. However, after the first round of tests, I figured out how to study for each professor’s different test styles.

I also attended the MSC Open House and looked at all of the student-led organizations that fit my interests, and I quickly discovered there were a lot to choose from! During my first semester I’ve become involved with Future Aggie Physician Assistants (FAPA), American Medical Student Association (AMSA), Ags of OAK (Open Acts of Kindness), and Residence Hall Association (RHA). Through FAPA and AMSA, I’ve learned from representatives from different medical programs across Texas, what it takes to successfully enter and complete a medical program. In RHA, I am the recycling chairperson organizing the recycling efforts in my dorm. My favorite organization however is Ags of OAK. We are each assigned a shift time with 4 other members and our group meets once a week somewhere on campus where we do various things to make the campus a happier place. Some of our activities included holding doors open for people, giving free “high fives” or hugs, and passing out candy. The campus favorite was when we gave out pieces of bubble wrap. It sounds silly, but the students really appreciated the stress relief it provided and it brought a smile to everyone” face. I love this organization because I feel, in some small way; I’m contributing to making Texas A&M a happier place.

Along with joining these organizations, I’ve also become involved with the A&M United Methodist Church. It’s been a great way to connect with other students on a more spiritual level and help make the community a better place. Before the second semester begins, I am participating in a mission trip in Dallas where our group is repairing homes and working at the North Texas Food Bank.

As happy as I was being at Texas A&M, meeting all of these amazing people and becoming really involved in my organizations, I was still struggling with my classes. I soon found out Honors Chemistry was a bit too advanced for me, but I was determined to stick with it. Our professor had told us the class was so difficult that if you had a C average, it would be curved to an A average for your final grade. My midterm grade was a B, so I decided to continue with the class. The material, however, continued to get more difficult and I ended my semester with a C in the class. Biology was another struggle. I attended tutoring as often as they had sessions, and I managed to make solid B’s on all of my tests, increasing about 4 points each round. However, the final was extremely difficult, and I ended the class with a 78.86, so I got a C in the class. It was devastating to be so close to the border Fine between a B and a C, but I learned the hard way how the college grading system can be brutal. Calculus was my best class, and I had kept an A average until the final exam. My final exam grade brought my grade down to a B. So, with a C in Honors Chemistry, a B in Honors Chemistry Lab, a C in Biology, a B in Calculus, and an A in Yoga, my final GPA was a 2.538.

I was very upset that all of my hard work this semester only accomplished a 2.538, but my grades have only motivated me to completely change my study habits this next semester. I have scheduled my classes to be in a block of time from 9-2 so I can be more efficient with my study time. I’m scheduling specific study hours for myself everyday, even if I don’t have something due for a while. I’ve come to the conclusion that your first semester of college is a huge learning experience, where you find out how to take effective notes, study properly, balance your activities and use your time effectively. I feel like that learning experience combined with my difficult classes is what was so tough about this last semester. However, learning from these experiences will be a blessing as I continue into my future semesters. I recently met with my mentor from the Independent Study and Mentorship program I was in last year. When 1 told her how school: was going, she told me the same thing had happened to her. She had gone from being valedictorian of her high school to making C’s and D’s her first year of college. She said she made some serious changes in her study habits, and saw major improvements with her grades because of that. She said she has no doubt I can do the same.

This first semester was absolutely wonderful. I have loved every minute of it (except for finals, of course). I am so blessed to be at the school of my dreams! Thank you so much for the scholarship for first semester. I know my second semester at A&M will hold many new learning experiences and successes.

Sincerely,

Julie Bunyard ‘14

Howdy Gina,

This is Satoshi once again.. I have almost been in College Station for a month, and I am amazed that I can make so much friends and have so much memory in such a short span of time. I’ve rushed for a couple of fraternities but I decided not to pledge, at least my freshman year. I have also been to the midnight yells and maroon out on the days of the football games. Last night I also volunteered to work the concessions for the Vietnamese-American Student Association as the Aggies BTHO Utah State! Classes have been great also, the professors are all very knowledgeable in their respectable fields and I can’t say the classes aren’t challenging.. they are. I just took an exam last Friday in my history class and I have two more lined up this coming week, political science tomorrow and business math on Thursday. I’ve been keeping up with classwork though so it’s all good. All in all, I’m having a blast here and I am thoroughly enjoying every moment of it.

Thanks,

Satoshi Endo

PS I have received the $500 in my student account, thank you all so much!

Gina Eckerman and Frisco A&M Club members,

First I would like to say thank you all for making this amazing scholarship opportunity and offer available to me, and no words can express my gratitude to everyone in the Frisco A&M Club!

This scholarship has helped ease the strain of college cost on my parents and have shown my family the graciousness and the community spirit of Aggies, and for that I am thankful and proud to be a member of the fightin’ Texas Aggie class of 2013! ! !

A brief introduction for those of you who does not know me. My name is Satoshi Endo and I am a graduating senior at Centennial High School. My family is ethnic Chinese from the coastal city of Shanghai but 1 was born in Tokyo, Japan because my parents moved to Japan before my birth for education and job opportunities. Nine years ago, my family moved to the United States, first settling in Houston, then in Tulsa, and now finally here in Frisco. Life hasn’t always been easy in the United States as my father eventually started his own construction business and my mother went back to school to receive a nursing degree to become a full time Registered Nurse. Their hard work and dedication has shown me that commitment to excellence and perseverance is a very important part of success, values which Texas A&M also strongly embodies.

I am planning to study Finance at Mays Business School and a minor in Asian Studies at Texas A&M University and doing a foreign exchange my junior year. I will also be rooming with a friend of mine since 6th grade who also moved from Tulsa to the Dallas area a few years ago at Texas A&M in the Southside. I am looking forward to the challenge Texas A&M will give me and the strong school

spirit (which my high school does not have much of) that it has! Honestly I am not much of a football fan but I love college basketball so it’ll be a great to see the Aggies dominate at Reed Arena! I am really looking forward to spending my next four years in Aggieland.

Finally I would like to give my thanks again to Gina who came to the scholarship night to present me my scholarship and being very gracious all the time and to the entire Frisco A&M Club for your contribution to my scholarship. I understand that there were many other qualified individuals who deserve this scholarship as much as I do, and I am just thankful that I was chosen. I will study hard, have fun, and make many friends once I get down to College Station next fall and I will make you all proud. Without any of you this would not have been possible, and thank you all again for showing me the spirit of the Aggies! ! !

Gig ’em Aggies!

-Satoshi Endo, class of 2013

Howdy Ags!

I’m halfway through my second semester of freshman year, and I can’t believe how fast it has flown! It’s been THE largest learning experience of my life by far.

The favorite part of my experience thus far has been the people and relationships that I’ve formed. I was always involved in high school ,so I knew going in that I needed to get join an organization. I joined one of the twelve FLOs(Freshman Leadership Organizations) called Fish Aides. It’s composed of 40 freshmen that on top of various social and service events get inserted into Student Government committees and have weekly office hours at the SGA desk. The four co-chairs at the beginning of the year told us that they would be 39 of our best friends, and I thought they were crazy-I didn’t know these people! But they were right! Almost all of them were like minded to me-driven, compassionate, ready to serve, and my base of close friends has been pulled from Fish Aides.

Through Fish Aides, I had the opportunity to be put on the BIG Event Committee. The BIG Event is the largest one-day student led service project in the nation. More than 12,000 students sign up to serve 1500 homes in the BCS area, and it’s been awesome to work behind the scenes, making everything work. It has been a TON of work, but as a committee member, we’ve gotten to go out and actually meet the people that we’ll be helping, and it makes it all worth it. I also like the fact that it’s completely student-led.

I’ve taken a couple of business classes in pursuit of my major, and have enjoyed them thus far. I enjoyed a small group for Business Honors, and have become close friends with some of the members. Now that I have gotten most of my core classes out of the way, I look forward to taking almost all business-related courses and international classes, since I hope to work internationally.

Currently, I’m giving a lot of thought to what I want to get involved in next year. This summer, I’ll be working the whole time at Sky Ranch, a camp in Van, Texas.

I look forward to my future here at Texas A&M, and I want to thank all of you for your continued support. I wouldn’t be here or enjoying my experience nearly as much without you! I encourage you to contribute to the scholarship fund so that future Ags can have the opportunity that I have had.

Thank you!

Kate

Howdy Ags!

Greetings from College Station, TX!

Here’s a little update on what’s been happening down in Aggieland!

It all started with New Student Conference in June…I registered for my classes, joined the 12th Man Student Foundation, and learned all about what the next four years are going to be like…

Fish Camp was next…four days of shouting, laughing dancing, meeting, and a little bit of learning thrown in there as well! I’ve never in my life lost my voice, but after just two days at Fish Camp, I sounded like a prepubescent boy!

Move-in day! I’m living in Underwood, a dorm right off the Quad and right next to Joe T. Haney Field, the practice spot(the 6 AM practice spot, mind you!) for the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band! I would complain about the early morning wake-up calls when I either thought it was thundering(drums) or that my phone was going off(Aggie War Hymn), but can an Aggie really complain about waking up to the Pulse of the Spirit of Aggieland aka the Noble Men of Kyle? I think not! Move-in day was hot and exhausting as expected, but to finally have a home in my favorite place in the world was a great feeling. And I didn’t cry when my mom left; or after for that matter-I was way too excited to be in Sweet Home College Station!

So here I am in the fourth week of school. It feels like I got here yesterday, but at the same time it feels like I’ve been here forever…either way I know there is no other place that I would rather be. All 16 hours worth of classes are fascinating-even Geology and MATH(who would have thought!?) ! Furthermore, I don’t think I’ve ever really been challenged in school, and now that I am challenged, I’m enjoying it! I like feeling like I have to make an effort to achieve and to learn. I’m thrilled with my Business Honors class. We have small group meetings with sophomore “peer leaders” every week, and I love my peer leaders and my small group members and look forward to getting to know all of them better! I love going to my business class because it grants a glimpse of what is to come in my future and prepares me for that.

I’m not all study though! I love being a part of the 12th Man for sporting events – volleyball, soccer, but ESPECIALLY football. You would think that when you’re 150 feet above the field, it would be difficult to see or be involved in the game. False. If anything, the third deck gets more pumped up than the lower two tiers(not that I wouldn’t mind being closer to the field…). The first game against Arkansas State was for lack of a better term, painful. But a win against New Mexico boosted our morale and I’m looking forward to a Fightin’ Texas Aggie win against Miami this Saturday! I’ll be selling 12th Man towels for many of the home games if you want to drop by and see me! As I said, I’m in the 12th Man Student Foundation and we mainly support our sports teams. After an application and two interviews, I found out today that I was accepted into Fish Aides, a FLO(Freshman Leadership Organization). We are a group of 20 guys and 20 gals that work actively in the Student Government Association, and I’m looking SO forward to being a part of this very fun and very community-oriented group! I’ve also gotten plugged into a church down here-Grace Bible Church. I signed up for weekly small groups and the Servant Team to help plan the semester retreat in October.

Well folks, I could go on forever about my experiences even thus far into the year. It has been jam-packed full of a whole lot of fun and it’s only going to get busier and more fun! I look forward to serving my community actively through the various organizations that I’m getting involved with and making my own way. I can’t express how excited I am to be here and want to thank all of you for your support-financially and prayerfully. And please don’t hesitate to shoot me an e-mail sometime with advice or questions or just to talk!

Thanks again and Gig ‘em!

Kate Paty
Class of 2012