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Students Khaled Ghara, Madellyn Pineda and Rimar West all have something in common. They are all from different parts of the world and play soccer for PCC. Ghara is from Israel. “I decided to come to the U.S. to finish my education,” Ghara said.

What interested Ghara in PCC was word-of-mouth he heard from the language school he used to attend, that PCC was one of the best colleges in the area. This influenced Ghara’s decision to come to PCC and play soccer.

Pineda, from Guatemala, decided to move to the U.S. because her mother died and she had no one to take care of her, so her father took her under his wing.

“I like living here, I am preparing myself to transfer to a university and graduate, and I’m working hard to get the best out of myself in soccer,” she said.

“[I came to PCC because] PCC was the closest and best community college I could attend after high school so I chose to come here,” Pineda said.

Pineda also explained that soccer has been helpful because she gets to refresh her mind and it makes her feel good and accomplished.

“Other than playing the sport, I never stop learning from my teammates. Now I’m ready to apply everything I learned to my own life,” Pineda said.

Rimar West is from England and Japan. He moved to Japan at age 14 and lived there for three years. West came to the United States because his family had to move for work.

“I was not supposed to come to PCC, but over the summer of 2009 I got injured and I lost a scholarship to a Division II school in North Carolina,” West said.

He explained that one of his friends lived near PCC and told him about the PCC team.

“I decided to move here because of all the positive news I heard,” West said.

While at PCC, he wants to finish with a 3.5 GPA and also wants to play soccer at the next level. The one thing West would tell a student from other countries is to “keep an open mind and try new things within the culture.

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