LUCERNE, Calif. – This year’s graduating class at Marymount California University in Lucerne presented their final capstone projects in a special Monday open house.
Eight graduating seniors – who, along with a ninth student will receive their degrees at Marymount California University’s May commencement ceremony – presented their capstone projects in the Lakeside Campus’ main lobby and reception area on Monday evening.
The work presented was the culmination for each of them of a year of study in addressing a need in the Lake County community while gaining organizational and research skills.
Of those eight individuals, five are business students with adjunct professor Dr. Richard Smith and three are psychology students with assistant professor Dr. Emma Ogley-Oliver.
Smith said the yearlong capstone project is required of all Marymount graduating seniors.
The goal of the projects is threefold, Smith said: it’s meant to benefit the community, to help seniors prepare for entering the job market and to help the academic program itself.
“This is actually their final exam,” said Smith, who was grading the students on their work.
The projects included studies on a birthing center, why people don’t go to college and how a sampling of local employers found that better pay isn’t offered in exchange for college degrees, internal training for services, increasing political efficacy, connecting businesses and jobseekers, the working homeless, fire recovery ideas from youth and behavioral health day programs.
Yadira Ortiz, who will receive her bachelor’s degree in business management in May, studied how businesses seek employees and how job hunters find positions.
She used an anonymous online survey to help gather information, and found that the two sides don’t seem to be finding each other very easily, with most businesses getting employees either through word of mouth or when people come in to apply for a job.
“I feel like there’s a disconnect,” Ortiz said, and that the local employment agency, while effective to a degree, could do better if it did more outreach about the availability of its services.
After graduation, Ortiz – who was born and raised in Lake County – said she hopes to stay in the county and find a job with the help of her new degree.
Psychology student Zabdy Neria studied youth perspectives on the recovery from the county’s wildland fires.
Neria, who also has worked for the last two years as a Lake County Behavioral Health case manager, said the project idea came to her when she was talking to a youngster she knows who was very upset about last August’s Clayton fire.
When she asked the boy about ideas he had for helping in response to the fire, she said he lit up and became excited.
That was the jumping off point to working with a small sample of eight students in grades fourth through seventh at Konocti Education Center’s afterschool program, Neria said.
The goal was to identify what the community’s youth thinks is needed in fire recovery. She said they came up with a number of suggestions, from “safe zones” where people can respond to get supplies and information, to more affordable housing and community caring projects, such as donation collection bins or blanket-making projects.
“They’re thinking critically and they’re coming up with these great ideas to help the community,” Neria said.
She said it’s opened up the possibility for further research, not just with that age group – with Neria noting that she has a long waiting list of children who wanted to participate – but also high school- and college-age students.
Business student Melissa Mae Hodder studied the working homeless.
Hodder said she wanted to understand why it is so hard for the small sample group of people she studied to find housing, even when they’re employed.
She said there is a gap between what they earn and the median rental prices in the county, which have gone up. There also are challenges with credit checks and the amount of money needed to get into a rental.
Hodder’s findings include a limited amount of affordable housing in the county that’s been further reduced due to the county’s wildland fires, and programs to help low-income residents – like Section 8 – being seriously waitlisted.
The topic, she added, needs more research and study.
Marymount California University is now open for enrollment in upper division courses in liberal arts, psychology and business management for fall 2017.
For information call or email Kathy Windrem at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 310-303-7670.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
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