Features

If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting Monique “Momo” Arao Garcia at Southwestern College, chances are that you have at least seen her work as a campus artist and designer. Take a walk through the Chula Vista campus, pick up a flyer or...

Imagine being a college athlete and having the chance to practice with a professional. It could be any of the big names: Peyton Manning, Kobe Bryant or Lionel Messi. That’s the kind of opportunity Southwestern College Theatre Department students recently had when Broadway star...

Angel Ramirez had a problem. It was different than any of the other academic problems he’d faced, like graduating Hilltop High School with a 2.1 GPA or dropping out of Southwestern College when he was 18. This problem was unique to his academic career. After...

Gabriel Gutierrez has had many educational accomplishments after graduating Hilltop High School. He graduated from San Diego State University with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in public administration. He was a part of the University of Kansas’ National Urban Fellows program where he received an executive leadership certificate.

On the outside, building 850 at Southwestern College’s Chula Vista campus seems like any other building filled with regular classrooms. But inside, students won’t find classrooms with rows of desks leading to a whiteboard. They’ll enter Southwestern College’s $6 million Center for Recording Arts & Technology.

When Architecture Professor Diana de la Torre Arredondo was in the fourth grade, the recession hit her family so hard they had to move from San Diego to Tijuana where it was more affordable to live. Her father, who worked as a draftsman and in construction for most of her life, bought a small empty lot and designed and built their home across the border.

All week long, the Jag Kitchen Food Pantry hosted events to bring awareness for students facing hunger and housing insecurities by hosting special breakfast bars, a clothing and toiletry drive, a community discussion and panel and much more.

If you’re looking for Abdimalik Buul at Southwestern College, you might find him in his counselor’s office helping a student figure out their major or a certificate program. You may find him inside a classroom teaching a Personal Development class for the Umoja (formerly The Exponential Learning Academy) African-American learning community.

Before Mary Casillas Salas ever walked through the halls of the California State Capitol as an assembly member, before she became the first Latina to serve on the Chula Vista city council and before she was ever elected to her current position as the first Latina mayor of the City of the Chula Vista in 2014, Salas was a student at Southwestern College.

Inside the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program at Southwestern College, Giselle Romo is spending a summer afternoon browsing files and renderings on her laptop of all the different things she can make with one of the program’s 3D printers. There’s a Stormtrooper figure,...