There are always problems in our society that we can’t prevent from happening, and when they happen, sometimes we can feel a little bit useless. We think that there’s nothing we can do to help and that as mere students there’s not much we can give to the people that are in more need as a consequence of the situation. But to prove that we can do so much more with so very little, I will like you to meet Ricardo Hidalgo Vargas. He is a student, just like you and me, of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, San German Campus. He shares with us some of his experience on how he and other students are helping the ones that need it. The students that his group has helped gave them a little surprise as a thank you and he tells us how was that experience.
HC: What are you currently studying?
RH: I’m currently doing a bachelor’s degree on Psychology.
HC: Are you doing any minor?
RH: For the moment I just want to finish my bachelor’s as quick as possible, considering the age that I am right now I think that I’m a little late. I’m 25 years old.
HC: I know you want to continue with master and doctors degree, but on what specialty are you going to do it?
RH: The plan at the moment is to do the master degree on counseling. I recognize that counseling is the one that can open more doors for the doctoral degree. It is like the base for any specialty that you want to do on the doctorate. When I finish the masters I want to study neuroscience.
HC: What do you think are your biggest achievements?
RH: One of my biggest achievements has to be being president of AEPSI which is an organization for whoever is interested in Psychology. The second one, and not least important, is being the ambassador of HETS which is Hispanic Educational Technological Services. This is a program that specializes on helping students with different needs, like giving scholarships, helping with resume writing, etc.
HC: What made you want to be part of HETS?
RH: What made me want to be part of this organization was seeing what they do, what they represent. HETS offers free exams for practicing on different tests, like the e-MCAT, SAT, etc. They gave you everything that you need for your career. They even offer books online for you to study. There’s a tool where you can put your zip code and it tells you the work positions available for you to apply. When they told me that they were looking for someone to be the ambassador I immediately say yes!
HC: You mentioned that you are the president of AEPSI, what you can tell me of this organization?
RH: This is an organization that looks to help and inform different students that are interested on psychology. They can enter students that are not doing a mayor on psychology, the point is to come closer as a group and grow on an educative perspective.
HC: What made you want to be the president of this organization and what have being your experience at the moment?
RH: I came to this position by a suggestion that a friend of mine said as a joke. He told me that if I wasn’t completely happy on how things were happening that I just had to be the president, and that was not a bad idea after all. I started planning everything that I wanted to do and I looked for the way of being a good leader, because I learnt that a boss and a leader were not the same, the boss looks for himself and the leader looks after the others. I always try to live that way and I insist to the other members of the directive develop their leadership as well.
HC: What struggles have you faced with this organization?
RH: I think that the most difficult time that we suffered was after hurricane Maria passed. It didn’t just affected AEPSI but all the organizations of the university. The biggest conflict was the lack of communication. When we started classes again on October 16, my priority was to contact the directive and try to help the other students. It was difficult but we got a meet at last. At that meeting, our counselor professor Dr. Maritza Velez suggested that we could use the savings that we had and help the students with food or any needs that they had. That’s when we started to organize everything to help students who needed help due to Hurricane Maria.
HC: We know that AEPSI offered breakfasts to the students those first days after returning from the break we had as a consequence of the hurricane Maria. You told us before that something happened after that with the students, can you tell us more about it?
RH: This happened on the third day after we came back to classes; we put a table on the lobby of Phraner Hall and we started giving sandwiches and hot chocolate to every student that passed, then around 10:00 am a line of students starts coming to the our table. Of course we gave them breakfast but it was different this time because when we gave them the sandwich they gave us a little card. Each student gave us a little card expressing their gratitude on it. They were little messages from the students to us thanking us for helping them and giving them breakfast. It was so beautiful and gratifying to see how gratefully they were, we felt so good for being able to help them. There was one card that literally made me cry the second I read it, I’m not going to say the name of the student but the card says this: “To the seniors members of AEPSI, I would like to formally say that in my hungriest moment, with only a cup of coffee in my stomach, you entered through the door like heaven sent messengers, bearing for the message of importance of a nutritious breakfast, and for that I can never thank you enough, with enormous gratitude…” I couldn’t stop the tears when I read these cards. I still have the cards and I will never get rid of it, they are too important. This was thanks to Professor DiLorenzo, he was the one that brought the cards and helped the students to write what they wanted to tell us, because he wanted us to see how great impact we were making. That was the best day of my life.
HC: You know that Puerto Rico is currently having a hard time and one of the many problems that students or people in general have is that they want to help but they don’t know how to. What can you say or what suggestion do you have for this people?
RH: The best way for helping is to simply be of service, it doesn’t matter if you can’t give something material. Whatever you have to offer is ok; sometimes even listening to people helps them. The blessing is helping the ones that needs it is with whatever you can.