San Marcos,
10
February
2015
|
11:46 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Cougar Spotlight: Akilah Green

By Jasmine Demers

Akilah Green is a passionate student leader who hopes to inspire other Cougars to facilitate change and take action on campus.

Green is in her fifth year at CSUSM and is majoring in Human Development. She is currently the president of the Black Student Union and has been involved in the organization for the past three years.

What is your favorite thing about CSUSM?

This campus is helping me grow as an individual and is helping me give back to others. I am a first-generation college student and I was really excited to get accepted into a university.

With every year that passes and with every new addition to our campus, I feel like I belong here more and more.

What is the Black Student Union and what are their goals?

BSU is a culturally-based student organization and our mission is to really get a community of African American students together and connecting with one another. Our goals are to help students get through to graduation and to promote student leadership. This campus itself is over 50 percent first-generation college students, which is a huge achievement in itself, so another one of our goals is to support those students. One thing that we are also working towards is our engagement with the community. We want to reach out to high school students and educate the community about our culture, history and identity.

What are your favorite events to attend on campus?

I love going to basketball games because it’s so great to have a good time with fellow students outside the classroom as well as faculty and staff. And we get to yell! It really brings that college experience to life and it brings out our school spirit because we get to rally on our Cougars against other teams. I really also enjoy Weeks of Welcome because it shows all that this school has to offer. Those events definitely helped me to become a more engaged student on campus.

What are your future goals?

I am currently a part of the Marine Corps Officer Program and upon graduation I will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

I want to eventually go and get my Master’s degree so that I can become a high school counselor. My passion is for education, and high school is such a challenging time in a person’s life because everything's changing. I want to be that person that supports them and shows them that I care about their future.

In what ways has CSUSM helped you to grow?

CSUSM has really fostered my ability to become a leader. I really appreciate the fact that this campus is very open to change and that they take into account different perspectives, in order to change for the wellbeing of students. Just by being here I was able to actually step up, be a leader and be that change that I wanted to see. CSUSM being a young university, there is still so much growth that is still happening and we as students have the opportunity to gauge that change.