My Article =0

Proud to be in EOP.

When I thought about what to write for my article, one thing kept coming to mind is to talk about how I am able to write in this paper now. I owe this to the Education Opportunity Program also known as EOP/AIM. Founded on the campus of Stony Brook University in 1968 with “The purpose of the Educational Opportunity Program is to fulfill New York State’s commitment to provide access to higher education for economically disadvantaged students who possessed the potential to succeed in college, but whose academic preparation in high school has not fully prepared them to pursue college education successfully.” I chose to write about the program because this year PBS did an 8-minute documentary on the program reason being Stony Brook University graduates 65 percent of its Hispanic students and 70 percent of its Black student population this is largely due to the EOP/AIM program. I had the opportunity to be apart of the video process this summer during the 5 week program which you have to go though in order to earn your admission to Stony Brook with completion of the program you earn 6 free credits towards graduation, I was one of the Head Peer Advising Tutor of the summer academy. What a lot of people do not know about the program is that it isn’t a free ride which you hear a lot from students who aren’t in the program, being in the program my self I have had a balance on my account every semester I know majority of the EOP students can relate with me on that. Do not get me wrong we do have special services that are provided such as a tutorial service which is free, a computer lab of our own which is located in our office on the 3rd floor of the Melville library. I recently sat down with one of the counselors which happen to mine Jarvis Watson and asked him if there was one thing you would like to see while you’re here as a counselor change what would that be. His responds was right to the point he told me he wanted 100 percent retention rate for the program but most importantly he stressed that the EOP students who are already apart of the program to don’t let it slip away from them. Meaning stay apart of the family that EOP has built don’t forget your roots, it is all well and good to get involved in other organizations and clubs on campus but whenever you hear about an EOP if you aren’t doing anything you should be there for support because it is this program that got majority of the Latino/Black students to graduation. EOP is a very powerful programs on this campus that have open the doors for leaders on this campus from USG Presidents to leaders of other clubs and orgs and members of fraternity’s and sorority’s. I felt as a student of the program I had to pay my respects. You can check out the video on the Stony Brook website and type in EOP/AIM.