Lancer’s Lives: Political Prow with rhetoric approach

Erick Peraza is on his fourth year pursuing a major in rhetoric looking into an emphasis in politics. He is currently the vice president for the United Without Boundaries club and will be applying to many universities in November hoping to get accepted into a good university such as UC Berkeley.

“It was difficult adjusting to college life. You go from high school where you have a structure of what you’re doing and people tell you what to do. Then you come to college and you kind of just have to figure it out by yourself.”

“I’m a first-generation college student so I had no college background which is why it took me four years to start the transfer process. I was just learning, taking my first steps, and starting over. I think I finally have an understanding of the system here.”

“After high school, I just went ahead and started working full time. I saw that that was going to go nowhere so I was like ‘I gotta do something,’ so that’s how I ended up at PCC.”

“Coming into PCC I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do so I took an English course with a professor whose degree was in rhetoric. Just seeing how he was able to explain things and how it was easy for people to understand his lessons got my attention a lot.”

“ A lot of people don’t know how to communicate and I think that it’s something valuable and something you can use not only in a teaching position but in a general aspect, which attracted me so I want to pursue rhetoric.”

“Probably more in the future I would be interested in running for city council or related positions, but right now I am into lobbying. I just spoke to a lobbyist a couple of weeks ago but she is from Arizona so it’s way different than California, but it was just for me to get an understanding of what she kind of does and how I can get into lobbying. It is a unique career so I just wanted to get more information about it before I completely submerge into that.”

“I’ve mainly just been involved with clubs while at PCC. Aside from United Without Boundaries, I’ve been in PUENTE, I co-started a philosophy club, and I was involved in many aspects of the student body government, so that’s something I find really interesting.”

“ I feel more confident transferring and I feel like I’ve done everything I could have done here and now it’s time for me to move on. Since my major is rhetoric, and many schools don’t have that program, so one of my choices is UC Berkeley since they offer an undergraduate program in rhetoric.”

“You meet people here that come far way to Pasadena and you get to see how their backgrounds are and you individually interact with them differently. I think you grow as a person when you meet people with different backgrounds.”

“If you’re from a different background or area, be involved with people and clubs because that helps you get out of your bubble and it allows you to interact with different people.”