Story and Pictures by Staff Reporter Roman Apodaca
Charlie O’Dowd, a Film Technology Professor, said that the CNM Film Program is getting a boost from Netflix Films, such as Airforce, being shot in Albuquerque.
The film program has exploded, said O’Dowd, and now there are three times the number of students enrolled in the film technology program than there were a year ago.
“I love entertainment, I’ve always loved entertainment. I’m a singer, I’m an actor but I don’t want to be a poor entertainer, so in the film industry … you’re doing stories, you’re working with actors and you’re making a living.” said O’Dowd.
O’Dowd explained that it was netflix coming in and putting lots of money behind different films being shot in albuquerque and the appeal of being able to work on an actual film that really made people want to join the program.
The program lets students get hand-on learning with equipment for working on a movie set, said O’Dowd.
Other community projects like recruitment videos for the Albuquerque Police Department are also influencing the program, said O’Dowd.
O’Dowd has worked in entertainment for over thirty years, starting on the management teams of numerous feature films including City Slickers, White Sands, Young Guns II and Suspect Zero, and has been teaching in film tech at CNM for 8 years now.
“For people with no knowledge of production, it’s impossible to know what you want to do prior to really getting out there and starting. So enroll now, don’t be afraid.”, said O’Dowd.
Film set at the Applied Technologies Center
The classes and sets for the program are located at the Applied Technologies center.
College isn’t that hard, said former CNM student Rhiannon Salas, if students know how to navigate the website, academics, and the resources available to them.
Salas said the classes at CNM are smaller making it an easier transition from high school to college.
Rhiannon Salas, former CNM Student
“It’s not as scary as you think it’ll be,” said Salas. “In high school they make it seem like this super scary moment and it’s going to be the hardest thing ever and your professors are going to be completely evil—it’s not like that.”
Incoming students should know that their education can be largely covered by filling out the FAFSA, according to Salas who paid for her first year through Grants and the Lottery scholarship.
Students should always fill out the FAFSA, because they may qualify for more than they thought, said Salas, commenting, “You’re giving me money? I get this? Cool.”
The FAFSA requires parental tax information which can impact a student’s aid eligibility, said Salas who had to get into her savings account one year because her mother had gotten a bonus.
She was told, “You make too much money. It was one bonus! I had savings so it was fine, but what do you mean I don’t get that? I’m not rich.”
Salas recommended staying away from student loans if possible, because so many people owe the government for their education and have trouble paying that money back.
Classes fill up quickly, limiting options for times and locations, which is why Salas recommended registering for classes as soon as possible.
“Literally, the second you can is the best time to register for classes,” she said.
According to Salas this ensures students get the classes they need at the times they want, but it also means that students have time to changes schedules if necessary.
Salas didn’t know that the library offered laptops to rent for students and admits that she would have liked to know more about the resources available for students at CNM.
She said she considered work study, but didn’t know where to get information about applying and would like to see that made clearer to students.
Students interested in work study should check with financial aid and CNM careers for more information, said Salas.
Wait before purchasing your school textbooks until the first week of class, said Salas, since most professors won’t expect students to have their books until financial aid kicks in.
“Chegg is awesome. Why? Because you can rent your books used and it’s super cheap! Cheaper than renting from the Bookstore,” said Salas.
Salas admitted that sometimes students have to buy from the Bookstore and they can use financial aid there to purchase school supplies, but if students can shop elsewhere it would be cheaper.
Every student should have at least a pencil and a notebook at the minimum for class, she said.
Salas said while not every student needs a laptop, school isn’t doable without a computer anymore.
“You don’t have to have a fancy laptop or anything, why, because that’s what the library’s for. You can go use their computers,” she said.
For those students planning to drive to school, Salas said to get there early enough to find parking because the general parking lot fills up quickly and students may have to walk a ways to get to their classes.
Even if students arrive an hour or so before their class, there are plenty of places inside to sit, and at least students will have a parking spot, said Salas.
“Even if it’s a bad parking place, at least you got to park somewhere,” she said.
When Salas first started at CNM, she didn’t know what she wanted to major in and went to an advisor for help.
She admitted that her encounters meeting with advisors were very helpful, but not everyone has the same experience.
When meeting with an advisor, Salas urged students to have specific questions in mind and to meet with the same advisor if possible.
“I guess, you never know, you don’t know what you’re going to get. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe you should just consistently try to shoot for the same advisor,” said Salas.
Salas encouraged students to get familiar with Degree Works to track their progress and to do research online about what resources are available.
According to a Georgetown University study on Education and the Workforce, it was found that more than 70 percent of college students have worked while attending school over the past 25 years.
It is obvious that students need to work to cover living expenses.
The second you are financially responsible for yourself, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) is outrageously expensive.
That pair of jeans for $39.99 is suddenly absurd. Gas prices are your new go-to conversation starter (they are at an all-time low right now, thank god).
The point is college students fresh from high school are newborns when it comes to handling personal finances.
The one thing that you will be guaranteed to do for the majority of your life is handle your personal finances and that is one thing we are not required to learn before we venture off into the world.
Besides, a budget excel worksheet and coupons are for old geezers…right?
Wrong!
That is exactly what college students need. Society may push for you to have the latest iPhone or that new Prada handbag but most students cannot afford it!
The average college student is expected to graduate with an estimated debt of $18,969 in New Mexico according to the Institute for College Access and Success.
Numbers don’t lie. Keeping up with the Joneses will not get you a 4.0 GPA or help fill in the extracurricular activities box on that scholarship application.
Keep up with your finances and create a cheap skate mindset.
How can a student do this?
Google it. Seriously, there are so many blogs and articles about how to save money and how to create a budget.
The mindset is the seed to plant before you start your research on how to be the ultimate cheap skate.
Now, some words of advice:
Do not purchase your book before your first class. Some professors do not even use the textbook.
Last semester my biology professor gave us an alternative textbook, a free pdf download.
Do not purchase the book from the CNM bookstore.
Sorry CNM, but this is just a no-no in my book. Unless it is an access code.
Look at bulletin boards for used books for sale, online, and book rental sites.
Always compare prices from different resources.
It will take time, but remember that time will save you money.
Do not buy new clothes for college.
You stopped growing and if you are not in need of new clothes do not buy any.
Sell your used books.
Please take advantage of free tutoring that CNM has to offer.
If you need a scantron the Connect Services desk will give you one.
Cheap skating is the new hype, all the stable kids are doing it.
Before students get to binge watching on Netflix or catching up on video games and napping, students should take the time to get out in the world and seek something beyond their computer screens this coming break.
There really is so much one can do to subside the boredom that comes with having a couple weeks off, such as getting out into nature, and New Mexico has much of that to offer including the Sandia Mountains that are right in all of our backyards, to Cochiti Lake that is only 50 minutes away.
New Mexico has many breath-taking landscapes and surrealistic camping sites far off the grid to choose from as well, that are all within an afternoon’s drive, so if this is the route you might want to take over the break, newmexico.org has a comprehensive list of great places to choose from on their explore New Mexico page.
There are also an array things to do in the city, and taking the time to pamper oneself can do wonders when coming back for a grueling semester, such getting an inexpensive mani/pedi or massage, or just relaxing with family and friends at a bar-b-que.
Albuquerque is truly diverse when it comes to culture as well, and one could even have an art scavenger hunt with friends, go to the museums in Burque, or go on a brewery and/or winery tour (with designated driver of course), as Albuquerque has a large assortment of home-brewed beers and wines accessible at an array of locations.
For more information on any of these suggestions, check out visitalbuquerque.org/things-to-do.
Either way, find something that you can enjoy doing over the break besides catching up on what the internet or boob-tube has to offer, and seek out what New Mexico has to offer instead, which will help in actually getting something out of having the time off, and will feel like your weeks off were not wasted away with trivial time suckers.
Sometimes it just takes someone saying we need to get out of here and do something in order for it to happen, so get out this break and have an adventure all your own, and gain some great memories with the people you love, so you can come back, hunker down, and be ready to get back to the grind of pursuing your dreams of a better education.
The Chronicle hopes everyone has a great break and relishes the rest of the summer season.
Getting through the FASFA process and attempting to get Financial Aid can be somewhat of a circus for some students.
What students have to understand is that the Financial Aid Department deals with close to 30,000 students, and many are having the same issues as you are right now.
So if you are having issues with Financial Aid and it is frustrating the hell out of you, seek advice from other students in their experiences and dealings with the financial aid department and see how other students dealt with their issues, because chances are it is not as bad as it seems.
Sometimes it can just be a form missed during filing or information that was overlooked, and can be remedied with a quick appointment with a financial aid advisor.
Also, many students do not actually know that they can qualify for grants and scholarships without applying for student loans, and can even become work-study qualified without getting all that financial aid has to offer.
Right now there are more than 100 student work-study positions offered throughout all the seven CNM campuses, which offer an array of positions, including here at The CNM Chronicle.
Due to the firing freeze we are hiring for more than 10 positions in an assortment of positions, including staff reporter, ad sales, and distribution (Please see our hiring ad on Page 2).
There are many opportunities to thrive here at CNM, and it may take some patience to get through the process, but there are many ways of acquiring funds here and the school knows we need those extra funds and will help students in getting them, you just have to know who will actually help.
So, to the people wondering if you qualify for financial aid or work-study, make an appointment with a Financial Aid Adviser at 224-3090.
Dubai officials have now proposed a $7 billion project to make the world’s first climate controlled community under a dome like covering, which will be a 50 million square foot community that will be sheltered from the harsh elements in the Arabian oasis, according to weburbanist.com.
This is the first concept of its kind that is actually being considered as a real project, and other countries could possibly take cue, as climate change is not going anywhere anytime soon, and is projected to get to the tipping point by 2020, according to huffingtonpost.com.
The massive structure will have 100 apartment buildings, dozens of hotels, medical facilities, a shopping mall, observation decks, the world’s tallest skyscraper and the world’s largest indoor amusement park; because that is how Dubai rolls, with epic and extravagant structures to show off to the rest of the world.
But what if there will come to a time when most large cities might require to have an area such as this for refuge from the ever-changing unpredictability that will come with the extreme weather of climate change, because it seems that the coming generations will have to do something in order to keep on surviving in the impending futuristic wasteland that is predicted to come.
Either way, this new idea for self-sufficient cities may become a huge power sucker, but could potentially save folks in the future from ever having to step foot outside in the elements again, and people could in fact start living under the dome, far from nature or the environment that is being destroyed in front of all our very own eyes.
At least there will be observation decks to watch the crumble of our environment in comfort of our climate controlled bubble, and never again will we have to care about the silly old environment that sustains the world and all our lives.
Many students at CNM have felt the pain and suffering that came along with the recent great recession, and many have had to resort to going back to school as a last alternative to move into another field in hopes of finding a decent paying job, but that is after months or even years of looking for employment in the desolate tumbleweed that is the Albuquerque job market.
And analysts at the Brookings Institute have said that as of 2014, Albuquerque is now back in a recession after three quarters of steadily dropping job losses in the metro area, with only 54 percent of the population in the workforce, according to the Rio Grande Foundation and kob.com.
We as current students are fortunate that there is a local community college for people to go to when times are tough to be able to find another occupation through low-cost education, but what will happen when we all leave college and there is indeed nothing out there for us to move on to and the student loan debt starts to accumulate.
Development has come to a screeching halt in most of the city and state, especially with industry development and exporting; seeing that many companies have either attempted to come here, have come here and failed, or were driven away by our politicians who have had their own agendas when bringing in new jobs and companies.
Some examples of this neglect are such as with the Richardson administration that lost $31 million in state grants and funds to two solar companies in the late 2000’s for not securing the return of funds through contracts, or the film bill from Martinez’s administration that essentially drove away most television series from producing in New Mexico because of last minute tax break negotiation changes.
The reality is that our politicians are not fighting hard enough to make adequate contracts that protect the state, and are not giving enough breaks or other incentives to bring new companies here— at least without preventing ruin or outright pullouts.
It honestly is a sad state of affairs when U.S. state officials are desperately competing with one another to win contracts and jobs for much needed development from the few companies still willing to base their operations out of the country.
But it is essentially up to our leaders to be innovative enough to develop a better economy with more jobs to determine whether outgoing students will have a fighting chance or not out there in the Albuquerque job market.
So it is extremely important, more than ever in fact, to pay attention to local politicians and to become part of the voice that dictates what our leaders do with our great state’s economy, because every day more and more people do not feel it is worth it to keep struggling in this now rapidly declining economy and are fleeing the state for better opportunities, which has unfortunately been an issue for many years here in New Mexico already.
Pay attention to the local general elections on November 4 if you plan on sticking around the state after school, and vote for the candidates that build their policies and reform around more steady jobs for New Mexico residents.
Because our city and state can no longer rely on government, scientific, or military jobs to get the state through this now overlapping recession, and what the state really needs to do is to bring back more blue collar industries and corporations to give New Mexico more middle and lower class jobs, as well as to give an opportunity to the residents to thrive, instead of to just merely survive.
In response to Volume 20, Issue 6 ‘Exemplary instruction gives disabled students a fighting chance.’
To the Editor of the CNM Chronicle,
We, the leadership team of the Universal Design Team at CNM, wish to commend the CNM Chronicle reporters and editorial staff for their insightful story on how faculty at CNM support students with disabilities and the statement from the Editorial Board. The examples given in the story about the success of the student in Instructor Carol Martinez’ class demonstrates how powerful the principles of Universal Design can be in enhancing students’ learning experiences. Her creativity in designing learning objects shows us how incorporating the Universal Design Principles of “equitable use,” ”simple and intuitive,” and “perceptible information” can improve learning for all students in a chemistry classroom. We are glad that our fellow team member was willing to share her methods and that her student was given a voice in the article.
It is our hope that the CNM Chronicle continues to include examples of Universal Design in action in further issues.
Mark Cornett, Director
Disability Resource Center
Carol Martinez
Chemistry Faculty
School of Mathematics, Science and Engineering
Katherine Duquette,
Administrative Coordinator WTC
Paula Smith-Hawkins, Ph.D.
Associate Dean, CHSS
School of Communication, Humanities & Social Sciences
It is tough as it is to have a disability that prevents mobility, use of hands or feet, and causes speech, vision or hearing difficulties or impairment that can truly devastate what a person is able to do on a day to day basis.
More than 18 percent of Americans have some type of disability that precludes them from the smallest activities that many of us out there take for granted every day, and more than 12 percent have a severe debilitating impairment that limits these people’s activities and at times their quality of life, according to ctb.ku.edu.
So, it is extremely reassuring to see that instructors at CNM are taking disabled students into consideration when it comes to these instructors’ classes, curriculum, the way they teach students, and how they can help students with disabilities to learn and succeed at this school, such as in the front page article ‘Chemistry instructor makes new tools for disabled students to learn too.’
Science classes and labs can be challenging as it is, but could be almost impossible to learn from when a student has a disability that prevents them from learning the curriculum in a class.
It is commendable that Carol Martinez and the Disability Resource Center saw that there is a need for specialized curriculum and created new tools for disabled students to be able to learn with hands on materials, instead of having to opt out because of their inaccessibility.
All students deserve the same quality of instruction when paying the same amount to get their educations, including disabled students, and sometimes they are left out in the wind when there is no means or outlet for them to learn from, especially in math and sciences.
Disabled people are forced to wait much longer to become employed, and are sometimes treated as if they are a burden, but most importantly people do not take the time to consider what disabled individuals must go through just to finish out the day, and it is truly admirable that this instructor and department took the time to consider what some disabled students need to get by or learn, and helped at least one student so far to succeed in doing so here at CNM.
The Know Now Mobile Medical Clinic coming to CNM campuses, which is offering free STD and pregnancy testing, as well as ultrasounds, may just be too good to be true.
The chronicle covered in the Mobile Medical Clinic story ‘Mobile unit provides free STD testing,’ in Issue 35 of Volume 19, but it has come to light exactly what kind of company is offering these services and why.
It is great there is a service that provides these benefits to struggling students for free, but there may be a catch when students go for pregnancy tests, as the organization that provides these services called Care Net is in fact an Evangelical Christian crisis pregnancy center.
According to care-net.org, Care Net is an anti-abortion organization that seeks to persuade women not to terminate their pregnancies, hence the free ultrasounds.
The organization was founded in 1975 in Northern Virginia, and is the nation’s largest network of pregnancy centers with 1,100 throughout the country, according to the site.
In addition to advising customers against abortions and free STD testing, Care Net does provide a slew of other resources such as baby supplies, temporary shelters, employment and debt guidance, as well as Bible study sessions that fit with the company’s values, the site stated.
Women that believe in the right to choose what happens to their bodies, might get offended by the Care Net service provider while getting a pregnancy test, because Care Net has been known to attempt to dictate what women plan to do with the rest of their lives and their unborn child, or women with pro-life values might just find it refreshing.
Care Net’s mission statement on their website at care-net.org said “With the support of Care Net and its network of pregnancy centers, people facing unplanned pregnancies are choosing life and hope every day.”
Care Net has also been known to speak out against abortion clinics and set up near clinics such as Planned Parenthood that provide abortion services.
Care Net protests both out front of Planned Parenthood, and have signs in front of their clinics that say “Pregnant? Considering abortion? Free services,” according to the Care Net Wikipedia page.
The Planned Parenthood website states that whether clients want to keep or abort their fetuses, the clinic provides women with the resource choices they would have for either scenario, without any influence on the client’s decision and just counsels women on what is out there for them to utilize.
According to vermontcynic.com, “Once inside the facility, women are subject to manipulative tactics, such as required ultrasounds and readings of religious literature that instill guilt and shame in those who may consider abortion. These types of centers seek to undercut the law and restrict a woman’s right to choose.”
So, if some women students out there want to utilize Care Net’s free pregnancy or ultrasound, be warned that the unit volunteers may try to persuade you under the guise of caring, but when it comes down to it the only person you need to listen to is yourself.
For those female students that would rather skip the judgments and religious/ethical debate, or the belittling of your own pro-choice beliefs; you may just want to pay the $10 pregnancy test fee at Planned Parenthood or the $65 for an ultrasound.
Not only for peace of mind, but also so that you will avoid being made to feel like an asshole or slut shamed for doing what millions of women did before you and will do for years to come, which is to get pregnant and not know what to do.
