By Jamie Gesell
Carlos Ventura is a senior biochemistry major and president of the Latino Student Association (LSA) from Westbury, New York. The Delphian was able to interview him about his time at Adelphi, LSA and his plans after graduation.
As a freshman at Adelphi, LSA was the first club Ventura joined and it helped him connect right away. “I just felt at home at LSA just with people. We all had different backgrounds but we all came to a space that united us,” he said.
Since officially becoming president of LSA last year, he’s made it his goal to make the club a safe place for other students like it did to him. Ventura, who has Salvadoran roots, is also a first-generation college student within his family, which means a lot to him. He finds that he can be a positive role model within his family specifically to his younger cousins and sisters.
“It’s kind of cool that they look up to me and see what I’m accomplishing and now they have the goals they want to achieve as well,” he said.
Without the Latin Students association club, Ventura says he wouldn't be where he is today.
He also views himself as an example to other Adelphi students on campus. Along with LSA, he helps students, be they first-generation or not, with career-building and preparation through workshops.
“A lot of it is resume building, networking, making a LinkedIn profile, stuff that everyone should know how to do, but no one really gives you a guide on how to do it,” he said.
What most people don’t know about Ventura is that he used to be a multi-instrumentalist. In high school, he played various musical instruments such as the clarinet, saxophone and drums. When entering college, however, he took a breath so as not to “burn out,” as he put it, but is recently getting back involved in music.
When looking at the Adelphi experience for Latino students, Ventura thinks that the Hispanic serving institution helps make it better for the students. He also thinks that professors, specifically Hispanic or Latino ones, do a great job at pushing for more events on campus for their students. But he believes the experience for Latino students can be even better if the school were to recognize and celebrate more of Hispanic Heritage Month. LSA has been pushing for a Hispanic Heritage Month at Adelphi.
“I don’t think we really see much of that throughout campus or what other individuals in other worlds do on campus,” Ventura said, adding he hopes that the college will do more with Hispanic Heritage Month sometime in the future.
Over the course of his Adelphi career, his proudest achievement was becoming a parliamentarian within LSA during his sophomore year.
“This helped all the seniors accomplish what they were striving to do and made the LSA organization of the year,” he said.
Looking back, he says his advisor Brian Stockman, chair of the chemistry department, had the biggest impact on him. “He was always a role model and someone I’ve always looked up to when I had questions.”
After graduation, Ventura plans to attend graduate school at Stony Brook University to study chemistry and obtain his PhD. It was Dr. Stockman who inspired Ventura to apply for graduate school.
“He led the way for me to do research and then apply for grad school because at first I wasn’t really thinking about going to grad school and then he motivated me for that,” he said.
Ventura wishes to be remembered as an outgoing person at Adelphi who would always have time to chat with fellow students. He will be succeeded by rising biology major senior and LSA public relations member Allison Reyes for president.
For more information about LSA visit https://myaulife.adelphi.edu/organization/lsa or follow them on Instagram at adelphi_lsa.