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EP. 1 The Scenic Route
33 Plays2 months ago
My into! it is Chaotic and my first time "professionally" yapping like this so be patient with me!! But also lovvvve feedback and any suggestions for future topics! Come with me on my journey through my SCENIC ROUTE <3
Transcript
Introduction to 'Undecided and Unfiltered'
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sam Facio
Hi Hi What am I doing? I don't know what I'm doing Hold on Sorry Hold on Hold on Hold on Hold on Okay Hi I'm Sam Hi
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sam Facio
we hi I'm Sam and
00:00:42
sam Facio
I'm so sorry Hi, I'm Sam and this is Undecided and Unfiltered So in case you can't tell this is my first podcast recording ever Um, so if it looks like I have no idea what I'm doing, it's because I don't.
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sam Facio
But it's okay. We'll figure it out. We got this. We're going to figure it out as we go. Because why not?
Purpose of the Podcast
00:01:18
sam Facio
So the idea for this podcast,
00:01:24
sam Facio
kind of like, the name describes it, undecided and unfiltered, is to share my journey through higher education from graduating high school to where I am now.
00:01:36
sam Facio
I'm about to start my senior year of my undergrad degree.
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sam Facio
And it has been ah uniquely chaotic experience that honestly gets me a little fired up when I'm talking about it.
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sam Facio
So figured why not use this platform to highlight what's going on and maybe other people might resonate with it.
Sam's Academic Journey
00:02:12
sam Facio
So like I mentioned, I'm about to start my senior year. I'm working towards a Bachelor's of Science in Marketing at Virginia Commonwealth University. However, this is nowhere near what intended to be.
00:02:31
sam Facio
however this is nowhere near what i intendeded to graduate with even remotely closed to what i started when i first began college so this first episode is kind of just about my hey my journey. And watching and you see my cats in the background,
00:03:08
sam Facio
So a little bit about who I am. 25. awesome twenty five I'm going to be turning 26 at the end of this year. And I'm recently married.
00:03:20
sam Facio
That makes me both an adult learner, which is any undergrad student who is 25 years or older when they start their education, particularly at my university, which is VCU.
00:03:38
sam Facio
ah And it also makes me a non-traditional student, which are students who are married, widowed, divorced, they have children or dependents, or they're affiliated with the military.
00:03:55
sam Facio
So because I'm married, because I was married when I started at VCU, I'm considered also a non-traditional student. And...
00:04:09
sam Facio
If you hear any yelling or laughing in the background, that's my husband. He's playing D&D tonight. He's kind of a little bit of nerd, but you know we like him like that.
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sam Facio
but But yeah, just him.
From Pharmacy Tech to Marketing Student
00:04:27
sam Facio
right, so let's start at the beginning. I'm originally from El Paso, Texas, and I graduated from Socorro High School in 2018. I grew up in a Mexican-American family.
00:04:42
sam Facio
My mom, she was a teen mom. She had me in high school, and she raised me as a single mom for most of my life. So often with help from my great-grandma.
00:04:56
sam Facio
And when I was in the fifth grade, you know my mom got married to my stepdad, and they had two little boys, my little brothers. They're the best.
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sam Facio
um They're both in middle school right now, which... It's crazy to me, but I love them so much. um When in high school, I chose to attend Socorro High School because they had a Health Professions Academy program, ah which is under the HOSA umbrella.
00:05:31
sam Facio
And during my senior year, I chose the Pharmacy Technician program and graduated with my Pharmacy Tech license. ah I even got offered a job at my externship pharmacy a month before I graduated high school, and I worked there for about five years off and on oh after I graduated high school.
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sam Facio
and
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sam Facio
So when i graduated high school, I got into the University of Texas at El Paso, which is my first attempt at college. ah And I started a pre-med track as a biology major, but I just couldn't pass chemistry.
00:06:23
sam Facio
Honestly, it was probably math component that the math always gets me. It gets me. I don't hate math, but it definitely gives me headaches.
00:06:39
sam Facio
But between struggling academically and some issues at home, I decided to withdraw and take what's called a sabbatical. But here's the thing.
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sam Facio
That's where i met my husband through a mutual friend. We hit it off and we've been together ever since.
00:07:04
sam Facio
So it's definitely a memorable experience in both good and bad ways. But after that, i'm drew and then I then worked full time to move into my first apartment at 19.
Pandemic Pivot and New Career Path
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sam Facio
Then a little while after that, the pandemic hit. And i ended up working both in a retail pharmacy setting and an outpatient pharmacy.
00:07:40
sam Facio
And honestly, the workload was very overwhelming, but I needed to provide for myself. So I continued on with that
00:07:55
sam Facio
It kind of made my plans for returning to school take a back seat. Until about midway through the pandemic, oh more classes started becoming available online.
00:08:11
sam Facio
So I decided, why not attempt to go back while I was able to take asynchronous classes in between my two jobs.
00:08:26
sam Facio
So then i enrolled in El Paso Community College. ah I was trying to get my basics, like prerequisites for an education track because at this time i had changed my mind and wanted to pursue an education major to become a teacher.
00:08:51
sam Facio
i then quit my retail pharmacy job and kept the hospital one and got a position as a teacher's as assistant did for a pre-K class just to see if the field was right for me.
00:09:05
sam Facio
Here's where it gets kind of fishy. I earned enough credits to graduate and even walked at graduation, but I never officially applied for my social degree.
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sam Facio
So family, if this is how you're finding out, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I didn't need you to sit through that whole graduation.
00:09:31
sam Facio
But it's okay. It's okay. At the same time, my husband was graduating with his bachelor's degree, so it was bittersweet because he's only a year older than me, so while people my age were getting their bachelor's degree, I was barely getting through basic credits.
00:09:54
sam Facio
It didn't feel good, and it took me a long time to understand that timing isn't everything. It's about doing what's right for you.
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what feels right to you.
00:10:18
sam Facio
I should also mention that I'm a first gen student. um
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I'm hopefully, wait, that's not right. I should also mention that i hopefully am going to be the third person in my entire extended family to get a college degree.
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sam Facio
I have two aunts with nursing degrees, but otherwise my mom, my dad, to my knowledge, my stepdad, Most people in my family did not go to college or finish a degree.
00:10:59
sam Facio
This makes me a first-gen student. And figuring that out is rough. It's very rough. I'm grateful that my mom knew how to fill FAFSA out because I still struggle to fill that out by myself.
00:11:18
sam Facio
My husband's also first-gen student, but he definitely has a lot of experience and has been a huge help to me as well.
00:11:29
sam Facio
So if you're first-gen student and you don't know what you're doing, you're not alone. You're not alone. So after my husband graduated, we knew we'd have to leave our hometown because there wasn't many opportunities in my husband's field there.
00:11:48
sam Facio
So i put my hege and my my education journey on hold again to see me kind of where we'd end up before I started back up again.
00:12:02
sam Facio
um I didn't want to transfer just to have to move again. So we ended up moving to Charlottesville, Virginia.
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sam Facio
It's a beautiful town, but I didn't know anyone except my husband who I had moved there with, and he didn't know anyone. So moving halfway across the country from my entire family was a hard transition.
00:12:30
sam Facio
And to top it off, I didn't know what I wanted to study anymore. I didn't know if I wanted to continue the elin education track again.
00:12:45
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and it just felt like I was back to square one. it felt like I had started over again.
Discovering a Passion for Marketing
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again so
00:12:59
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So instead of transferring to a four-year university graduate, I decided to work and take some classes at the local community college, Piedmont Virginia Community College.
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sam Facio
I had planned to get an IT certification because they offered a lot of certifications at that college.
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sam Facio
And... It was a weird experience because I was actually taking in-person classes and this was the first time i've had been back into a higher education building for the first time since I dropped out at 18.
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sam Facio
And I was nervous because i thought i was going to be one of the older students in my classes. But community college, if you've ever been, a wonderful age diversity.
00:14:08
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So i actually felt really, and really comfortable, um comfortable enough to get involved in extracurriculars.
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i joined the student government and I also became, oops,
00:14:34
sam Facio
The girl's gonna have to do some editing because these cats are not cooperating. I have three cats and they decided now they were gonna get on each other's nerves and start fighting.
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sam Facio
Um, they're my children, so I'm gonna have to go put them in timeout in one second.
00:14:59
sam Facio
Anyways, my children are settled. I don't know. That was, that was too much. Where was I?
00:15:12
sam Facio
Okay, now that I'm done with the cats, I was, oh yeah, the age diversity at community college. um Amazing. I joined the student government.
00:15:24
sam Facio
I became a student ambassador who gave tours to incoming students, prospective students. I helped current students register for classes.
00:15:39
sam Facio
Excuse me. I helped current students register for classes. But here's the kicker. as you failed almost every IT class I was taking in there.
00:15:56
sam Facio
Yeah, i I don't think i I might have passed one, but I was having a mental breakdown. I was considering dropping out ah again and possibly moving back home by myself for it a little bit just to kind of pull myself together.
00:16:16
sam Facio
But luckily, before i dropped out, I met my wonderful mentor, Mary Evelyn Sellers, who works at PVCC.
00:16:28
sam Facio
And she was new to the college as an employee, and I was a new student. So we met, and we kind of leaned on each other for help.
00:16:41
sam Facio
oh While I was helping her create flyers for student life events, she said something that changed everything. She said, Sam, you know you have a good eye for this.
00:16:54
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Have you ever looked into marketing? And I was blown away. i was blown away. No one had ever told me that. No one in my family works in business. We're all the medical and law enforcement field.
00:17:09
sam Facio
um But she encouraged me to look into it, and I did, and I fell in love with it. So that's kind of how I got to where I am now, at least the major that I'm now.
00:17:28
sam Facio
And so I finished my general education classes and I applied to VCU because I really wanted to move back to a big city.
00:17:40
sam Facio
Charlottesville was very nice, but I like the city city. And Richmond felt like home.
00:17:52
sam Facio
I constantly meet great people here. There's always something to do. And compared to back home at El Paso, it's very walkable.
00:18:04
sam Facio
So it's very nice to explore all the trails, to walk from the apartment that we're in right now. We're able to walk downtown to the river. So could even bike to school, which I have before.
00:18:21
sam Facio
And it's not that bad. So... 10 out of 10 wonderful experience. We'll what comes. I've only been here a year, so we'll see what this next year has to offer for us.
Reflections on an Unconventional Path
00:18:41
sam Facio
I started VCU last summer and now i'm heading into my senior year. i only have six classes left, so hopefully Hopefully it's not overwhelming these last two semesters because I spaced it out to where I'm not rushing myself.
00:19:04
sam Facio
I'm gonna take the last two semesters, graduate spring 2026. And honestly, I'm very excited because if you would have asked me 2019 or 2020,
00:19:17
sam Facio
twenty nineteen you remember twenty twenty if I thought I'd be getting my bachelor's degree the answer would have been no no and honestly i don't think the people around me really thought I was gonna do it either i think they wanted to believe in me but
00:19:44
sam Facio
no one saw a clearer route. So now that we're here, we're all very proud that I'm almost there.
00:19:55
sam Facio
There are so many what not to do's and what to do's that I've learned throughout this journey. the pain of working while having to go to school, learning from scratch how to do resumes and interviews, figuring out how internships work and what concentration to go into, dealing with financial aid hardships and the awkwardness of joining university clubs at 25.
00:20:31
sam Facio
are all something that I personally have experience with and it is, it's a journey. It's been a journey. oh At VCU, it's kind of different from when I was at PVCC, ah where I do face the challenge of having classes with a lot of 18 to 20 year olds.
00:20:55
sam Facio
And I get it, it's not a huge age gap, but Sometimes feels big. It feels big and it serves as a reminder of what could have been and it doesn't always feel good.
00:21:14
sam Facio
But all I have to do is remind myself that at least we're doing it because there was a point when I wasn't gonna do it.
00:21:27
sam Facio
And oh my gosh, don't even get me started on paying for school. That is probably biggest headache of higher education.
00:21:41
sam Facio
And it is one of the main reasons why I originally dropped out. And sometimes it feels like the cards are stacked against non-traditional students.
00:21:56
sam Facio
But believe me, there are a lot of people advocating and providing resources for us. So it might be a little bit hard, but we have our village.
00:22:14
sam Facio
You just need to find it.
00:22:18
sam Facio
So
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you need to find it because
00:22:26
sam Facio
I could explain to you the contrast between how bad it felt dropping out the first time and how amazing it feels now to almost have my degree in something that I'm passionate about.
Supporting Non-Traditional Students
00:22:48
sam Facio
I don't think there's words. don't think there's words for her for describing that feeling. So this podcast is definitely for people who don't fit that traditional college student role, whether you're older, coming back after a long time away, dealing with a career change or a major change, gap years, to late starts.
00:23:16
sam Facio
transfer students part-time learning because of work or family obligations um if you're a working student which isn't ideal sometimes but sometimes we don't have a choice or if you just feel left behind or off track we can talk about it we're gonna talk about it because There is no single track.
00:23:48
sam Facio
But if you feel that way, because i know I did, sometimes,
00:23:56
sam Facio
sometimes I still do, but I just have to remind myself. But if you feel that way, We're definitely going to discuss it. I want to cover as many scenarios as possible based on the people I know, experiences I've witnessed, and provide advice and resources to help you out.
00:24:20
sam Facio
And that's my main goal. So that's my story so far. It's a complicated life and I still don't know what I'm doing half the time, but we're going to figure it out as we go.
00:24:39
sam Facio
And for those of us taking the scenic route, I'm here for you. So stay tuned for the next episode where we'll dive into specific challenges and hopefully bring on some guests with similar experiences.
00:24:59
sam Facio
Bye. you, friends.