Alpha Theta Phi Chapter - Phi Theta Kappa - LaGuardia Community College

By Manjeet Chapagai For most of the students of the today’s world, what holds more importance in their life is going to the college regularly, getting good grades and graduat ing with a dashing GPA. But being a graduate with good grades is not the end of the struggle, rather is the beginning of the real struggle as one must present oneself in the real world and compete with the real expertise of that field. For that, one must have good communication and a leadership skills and most importantly can work as a team with the different people having different opinions. So, to develop such skills from this stage of life itself, one can’t get better opportunity than becoming the member of the prestigious society like Phi Theta Kappa which already has four hallmarks of leaderships, fellowship, scholarship and service. To be one of the member out of three million people of about thirteen hundred colleges is itself a matter of great honor for me. Moreover, being the member of such ...

By Tsewang Rinzin It was a truly amazing experience I had at the Regional Convention at Albany from March 3rd to 5th hosted by Fulton-Montgomery Community College. Among many activities, I had the most fun and experienced great learning outcomes during the poster presentation. Part of the reason is because of all the hard work that we put in for the Honors in Action research project, I was finally able to showcase what we learned from our project to all the honor students present. And most importantly I was able to experience great intellectual conversation about other chapters’ poster presentations. Kingsborough Community college’s project in particular, I found their poster to be very engaging. Although both Kingsborough and my college chose the same theme of Individualism and Collectivism and learned that understanding our personal identity is extremely vital in order to understand how our actions or ways of life impact our society. While we chose to do True Colors as an activity ...

by Bilal Hassan The Alpha Theta Phi Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa is an International Honor Society at LaGuardia Community College. Becoming a member of the prestigious society of the Alpha Phi Theta Kappa is not just an incredible step, but also a great honor for me. It is the society of high academic achievers of college students. The purpose of the society is to promote the awareness among the members and students about Scholarship, Leadership, and Fellowship opportunities. The society of Phi Theta Kappa is not only organized to benefit members but also the students of the respective colleges. Being an active participant and volunteering for the society would allow me to explore more opportunities of scholarship in different Colleges and Universities in the United States of America and including many other countries that provide a generous scholarships to the members of the society. The Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society will definitely guarantee my access to all benefits that wi...

by Annie Liu The straightforward path of getting an A in a college course requires you to attend class, do your homework and ace your exams. By doing so, you will gain a lot of knowledge and understanding about the world, however very rarely do you get to apply the things you learn from your professor and your textbooks in real life. Sooner or later, we all will need to be able to communicate with people, have leadership skills, be able to work in teams, etc. These are things that being a member of Phi Theta Kappa can help. Phi Theta Kappa underlines four hallmarks for its members: leadership, service, fellowship and scholarship. All four hallmarks are very beneficial to any member who seizes the opportunities that Phi Theta Kappa offers. Personally, I am excited to improve my communication and leadership skills. I believe that it will not only be helpful towards reaching my career goals, but also to grow as an individual. One big opportunity that Phi Theta Kappa offer...

by Chika Matsusaki I came from Japan with my broken English, and I am still taking ESL (English for Second Language) classes during my second semester. I think I am lucky because I received an invitation from Phi Theta Kappa. However, I did not know what Phi Theta Kappa was, so that when I received the invitation, I was really surprised. I didn’t know differences between written English and Japanese, so I failed the LaGuardia writing (the CATW) before my first semester. To pass CATW, I had to take ESL classes for almost one year. I was so disappointed in myself at that time. That’s why I was surprised that they invited me to be a member and it is the light in my academic life. Becoming a member is the proof that I did the best in college life, and this is a great opportunity to make new friends in LaGuardia Community College. PTK has some teams which are The HIA Team, the College Project and the Leadership Committee. The HIA Team makes a project to foster a s...

by Soleil Griffin At the PTK Regional Conference, we experienced interesting Keynote Speakers and enjoyed interacting with other chapters within the New York Region. One particular speaker who caught my attention was John van Bladel. His presentation was interesting since he taught us the art of Mindful Meditation. At the start of his presentation he spoke about growing a happy brain. He said “if you practice mindfulness, it will enable you to live a happy and healthier life.” This is represented by controlling how you react to situations. For instance, he claimed that when you walk into a room, you have the ability to change the mood. By making a decision to be proactive about it, no one will be able to force you to feel however they want you to feel. His presentation geared to how he wanted to create peaceable learning communities and workplaces that support civil discourse and critical thinking skills. He tied it into how now a day’s people are starting to believe the...

by Chikako Kakihira P.T.K. is a helpful organization for students, who attend a community college, when they face financial difficulties, such as a raise in the rent, an inability to buy a Metro Card, layoffs and emergency expenses. Thus, financial crisis is an obstacle for students, who are serious about achieving their academic goals, one of which is to obtain the university degree within a given period. In my opinion, no student should be denied the opportunity to his/her career. To make our lives easier, it is important to get a university degree because studies show that students who received the bachelor’s degree could earn salaries as almost one and a half times as those who only received the associate’s degree. One of the benefits of P.T.K. is the scholarships it offers. Members are able to apply for over 37 million dollars in transfer scholarship available only to members. For students like me, who hope to transfer to a four- year college, that means an average t...

By  Chethana Prabodhanie What is a business meeting? What are bylaws? These were two questions that I was eager to get answered ever since I heard them prior to attending the PTK Regional Convention. And of course, by attending the convention, I received the opportunity to not only discover the meaning of these words, but I also their significance as well. If put in to my own words, a business meeting is one where the meeting is commenced and adjourned in a formal manner and all the suggestions are proposed by one person and seconded by another. And the bylaws are the rules that are made in order to keep order and control within the PTK and its members. During this New York Regional Convention of the Phi Theta Kappa, I witnessed a business meeting and the process of making amendments to the New York Regional Bylaws. The business meeting was held on March 4th, 2017. And the purpose of this meeting as described before was to pass the changes that were made to the bylaws of ...

by Dipa Rai This was my second time attending a PTK conference. I along with my team we went to Albany for our Regional Conference. It was an amazing experience overall. This time I felt little more comfortable being around with people than the last time as most of them people were from last conference. Maybe because of this I was more calm and relaxed this time. The schedule was not hectic in comparison to last time.  And the most important part that I enjoyed was the award ceremony where we also won the award for "Five Star Chapter Award" including 1st runner up for outstanding HIA award, Leadership award, Fellowship award and Digital Media award. We hoped for the trophy but unfortunately we couldn't make it which was sad. But I really hope and wish that our upcoming team will definitely make it. :) Talking about the workshop sessions this time there were only three particular workshops besides group discussion.  The second workshop session caught my attention and...

by Akampreet Kaur How are we influenced? You must say, “by friends, family, or even our own peers.” One thing I learned in my first PTK regional conference is that us as individuals have the power to change our lives and others. There are many people who influence us yet, if we don’t push ourselves out from our little box, we will never grow and learn new things. Meeting the regional officers in mini-discussions was a great experience to hear what they been through. We all are scared to try new things however, we must take allow these changes as they are much needed in our everyday lives. Each chapter team had to give a five minute preparation on one unique thing about their chapter. Our chapter decided to do it on the Volunteer Induction Program that we created to help develop our fellow members transition into becoming successful leaders of our community. The program inspired and motivated our members to come back to volunteer more. This led to a higher attendance rate an...