After being in the U.S. Army for just over four years, veteran Jordan Agricula – President of Mesa’s Student Veteran Organization – is now a student at San Diego Mesa College applying to transfer next fall.

Agricula – who has attended classes at Mesa for the past three years – was born in Hawaii, but grew up in California. After initially beginning college at Santa Rosa Junior College, Agricula dropped out of college and moved back to Hawaii, later joining the military to gain job experience.

Students, faculty and staff are invited to participate in the annual, Mesa Visions Art and Literary magazine contest by submitting works of fiction, creative nonfiction or poetry by Dec. 9.

Selectees will be notified during the spring 2017 semester and will be invited to a ceremony for the winners, where they will receive a free copy of the magazine. Prizes will also be awarded in the form of $100 for first place, $75 for second place, $50 for third place and $25 for honorable mention.

Following in the footsteps of her father and cousins, San Diego Mesa College student Janet Langrehr joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1985, 29 years before stepping onto campus as a student.

After having first received a degree from ITT and a paralegal certificate from University of San Diego, Langrehr signed up for classes at Mesa two years ago to pursue a degree in accounting with minors in business and computer information systems. She plans on transferring to a four-year school once she has completed her time at Mesa.

After four years of service in the United States Marine Corps, Bakersfield native Freddy Cervantes began to pursue his college degree at San Diego Mesa College in 2014.

Studying as an electrical engineering major, he currently holds a GPA of 3.86 and is the President of Mesa’s chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society. In addition to PTK, he is a member of the Student Veterans Organization, Math Club, MATLAB Club and sits in with the Math Research Group. He tutors at Mesa in math up to linear algebra, Calculus III, German and Chemistry up to CHEM 200.

With Veterans Day on the horizon, student veterans and their support staff on campus are gearing up for a week of activities to honor their service.

“We know that it’s not just ‘a’ day that we need to honor our veterans, it’s something that we need to honor every day,” said Ramiro Hernandez, Mesa College Counseling Department Professor. “Thankfully, here at Mesa, we’ve been able to make it into a weeklong celebration.”

San Diego Mesa College’s Languages Department hosts a Dia de los Muertos celebration on campus Wednesday, Nov. 2.

As part of the celebration, there will be viewings and discussions of the film “Days of the Dead: A Living Tradition” in room LRC 435 at 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. and a second viewing at 11:10 a.m. to 12:10 p.m.

San Diego Mesa College’s Communication Studies Department invites students, faculty and staff to mingle during this semester’s Common Grounds event at MC 211 A/B on Thursday, Nov. 3 from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Each semester for the past three years, the department encourages the campus to meet on “common grounds” with conversation, coffee and cookies to make connections and find out more about the experiences of others on campus. In addition to cookies and coffee, attendees can be entered to win prizes if they have handed out cards to invite others to the event.

San Diego Mesa College’s School of Mathematics and Natural Sciences’ welcomes students, staff, faculty and the community to attend the STEM lecture series this fall semester.

Originally created as a Physical Sciences Lecture series in 2014, the wider categorization of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics allows for a greater range of subjects to be featured during the lecture series.