Episode 2 Reflection

Justin Diaz

In this episode of the series, this episode described how the army helped out Julian Ditonia choose a career path to study later on. He described the struggles of having no dad for the majority of someone's life and how it affects someone mentally on how they will take their future job or how they take on the future. FOr him, he found how to strengthen using the military in the Army Reserves and how it made him grow. He explained the privileges on how it can help you later on by going in the army like guaranteed admission to colleges and also more training on what you can do later on in life. For example the engineering part and how you get taught to work on mechanics and more. But the best reason for the military is to find who you are and what you want to do with your life. Nevertheless, it was a deep and interesting episode that opened another door for me to choose to pursue.

Brian Helewa

Sergeant Julian Ditona was an average high schooler such as having no intention for doing extra curricular activities. However, he lived next to Mrs. Salazar who was the administrator at the time for Robotics and got interested in it. Through his experience he learned that it wasn’t about winning the competition, but learning the mistakes you did and what you did well throughout the whole tournament. Later then, he signed up for army camp training because he wanted to try something new and he was interested in the army. He was sent to a training camp in Missouri which had a totally different environment than in the area of San Diego. Within the camp he saw people of different ages joining and when doing it, it changes you because of the discipline and training that is involved.

Hojin Kim

I learned that you can change your life anytime around, but you need to be in the correct mindset. Sometimes you can take a break from your plans and try to find where you want to end up at. I was able to learn more about the military and how you are placed in different units. There are various kinds of training and their goal is to have the same product from a wide variety of people. The aptitude test that they give you, separated people and suggests them for a job based on their personality.

Andrew Lai

Sergeant Julian Ditona helped me get a better understanding of both SDSU and how the military is indeed a viable career pathway for someone like myself. I was curious to hear his experiences in the military and how they shaped him as a person. I was also very glad to hear how he used calculus and how useful it is as I find calculus very interesting to learn and I am not too bad at it (yet). He made me feel glad for taking AP classes in general as he told me how much money I could save on classes. I was very interested in his choice to use the GI bill to help with his college tuition as I believe that could be very beneficial to someone like me in the future.

Robert Meza

After hearing about Sergeant Julian Diana’s story, this allowed me to understand that a lot of what you do currently will affect you in the future. In his case, he took a test in school which would lead him to work for the military, with his position working with radios and such. And with the GI bill in place, the military would also offer him education benefits. Once I learned about this, I learned that the military isn’t always a bad pathway as it can grant you many benefits later on in life, including educational benefits. Although he would explain that though there were many benefits to the military, he would also explain that not everything will come easy as there would always be struggles out there, not only in the Military but in life. With these struggles, you would have to overcome them to continue on to reach success. In the end, I found this episode intriguing as it shined some light on the military as the military sometimes isn’t always just a career choice, but it can be seen as a step to reach your career of choice thanks to the GI bill.

Faith Shin

This episode of the symposium series with Julian sort of helped me with my more present, current state. As a student taking AP Calculus currently, I learned a very important fact: "Calculus is the foundation of everything". Math was not a class I took very seriously. In class I would often fall asleep and go on my phone. As an uninterested and impolite student, listening to his words caused me to reflect on my past actions. After watching the interview of this alumni, I began to see a change in my attitude during class. I underestimated the value of calculus and failed to realize that it is very important for STEM based majors, which was actually really important for me, for someone who wants to major in STEM. I also found a suggestion of his very helpful. He mentioned that taking community college courses in math would save thousands of dollars in university. This prompted me to realize that this could mean graduating earlier than the average four years.

Sinjin Torgaeide

In episode 2 of the symposium series, the background information was done well for Julian Ditona and explained some of his time spent in high school, including robotics and drama. Julian emitted a friendly nature throughout his high school journey and afterwards. Additionally, he connects with the audience by claiming that he feels lost and makes mistakes, however, he would make several plans and decisions to solve these problems and march towards the future. He also connects with those looking to join the military and encourages them, as a role model, to follow a similar path as Julian. There were great visuals of him in the military as he was describing his enlistment into the military. Julian sheds light on tasks to perform whilst in the military, like basic training, and shows how difficult it is to survive the training in the military. While this could discourage some to pursue joining the military, it could also prepare people what to expect when entering their training drills. He also shows credibility as a sergeant in the military which could convince the audience to respect and learn from his words even more. Julian also gave educational benefits of the military, or reasons to go to the military.

Although Julian has a friendly atmosphere as he presents himself, there seems to be informality with how he talks about his experiences and goes off topic a bit, but it does so in little increments, for this reason, it is not much of a problem.

Sean Yeow

My personal reflection of the “Symposium Series Ep. 2”. The alumni that talked in the interview is Sergeant Juilian Ditona. Juilian said that he was just pouring concrete and didn’t have any blueprints. I related to that because I am still try to find my self in what I really want to do. I really want to do something in the medical field but also have an interest in engineering and programming. Robotics really clicked with me, when the moment I joined it felt really right and had a deep passion with it. I thought it was cool how he’s able choose the path of electrical engineering with experience in the Army. He told us 9th graders to “don’t play around” and to not waste our time. Talked about math and how much he needed to use it in his work. He said that he had trouble with trig. And needed to refer to textbooks about it and used calculus for everything. He really regretted not doing a much as he wanted in 9th grade and how it back ford on him. It really showed that 9th grade is not a joke. I should really absorb all the material, even during these times of distance learning. It’s really difficult to concentrate and easily get distracted. Just watching this video really inspired me to continue to pour me concrete and provide a good foundation for my self. Start now in my first year of high school and try to get ahead of everything. I learned so much with just this video I hope I’m able to continue watching them in my spare time.

Shannon Yeow

Going through high school and joining clubs like Mustang Robotics is building a foundation so that you can later build off that foundation to venture into any direction you wish. I really resonate with this statement that it is your experiences that you continue to build off of and that during that journey, you learn and mature. Even if you don’t go through college, there are still an unlimited amount of pathways and opportunities and college does not determine how successful you will be in the future. I think it's really inspiring that during training, there’s such a large age range and people from many different backgrounds. It shows that life isn’t a race and everyone is at their own pace. He entered the military through communications on the 98th expeditionary force, experts in tactical communications. In the military, if you don’t put the work in, you won’t get the work put out. With the educational benefits from the military, he continued his education at SDSU, pursuing an electrical engineering degree. This episode was extremely inspiring in the sense that he taught a lot of life lessons. Throughout this episode, Sergeant Julian continued to emphasize the point of “pour the concrete” which is the life lesson to continue building the foundation and you’ll see the fruits of it later. Robotics was the first step that “became his concrete” and I am motivated to continue building upon my experiences.

Euphony Zhou

Throughout episode 2 of the symposium series, Sergeant Julian Ditona really opened up a new insight on SDSU. His advice on community college courses really impacted me as it led to saving a lot of money and overall easier college experience. His description of his journey in the military and its enlistment process was also very interesting as he went over the educational benefits and challenges he experienced.