Displaced
students get by at Long Beach State
By
Latifah Muhammad
Daily Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Five months after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, some Cal State Long
Beach students who transferred to California from schools in Louisiana have
decided to stay, while others have chosen to leave CSULB.
Suzanne DeJean, a community health education major, came to CSULB four weeks
after the beginning of the fall 2005 semester. After disliking her visit to
Cal State Los Angeles, DeJean decided to attend CSULB.
However, the semester did have its complications. She broke her leg and arm
in the beginning of the school year and flew back to Louisiana, missing two
weeks of school.
Her transition to CSULB was made smoother with the help of the president’s
office staff.
“A lot of people have taken me under their wing,” said DeJean. “If
I need anything I can go to them and they can help me out.”
To pay for the fall 2005 semester, DeJean used her savings and money left over
from a $2,000 check she received from the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
after the hurricane hit. This semester her father paid her tuition, but she
is not sure yet how she will pay for the fall 2006 semester, when her tuition
increases until she gets residency in January 2007. The students displaced
by Katrina were able to pay California resident tuition for the fall 2005 and
spring 2006 semesters.
For DeJean, Hurricane Katrina was a chance to get out of Louisiana.
“California has a lot more opportunity than Louisiana. There’s something
for everyone,” she said. She has decided to stay at CSULB and hopes to
graduate within a year.
“It wasn’t hard at all,” said Dwight Beasley, a double major
in computer engineering and business management, who came to CSULB after leaving
Xavier University, in New Orleans. Beasley, like all of the students displaced
by the hurricane, was offered in-state tuition fees. His tuition for both the
fall and spring semesters was covered by a $5,000 scholarship he received from
Scholarships of America, after appearing on “The Doctor Phil Show.”
“I’ve been wanting to come to California for my whole life,” Beasley
said. “I saw the big blue pyramid and I said, ‘I want to go there!’”
Once he came to CSULB, he was offered room and board from a local resident
who wanted to open his home to help those displaced by the hurricane.
Beasley has since been back to Louisiana to visit his mother and sister, and
said the atmosphere has changed, noting there was an 8 p.m. curfew. Though
he misses his family, he enjoys his new home.
“I think I’ll be staying here for good,” Beasley said.
He joined a Christian student group on campus as well as the Black Business
Student Association. He started a company that builds and repairs computers,
and will be moving into his own apartment next month.
Dillon Pouliot, on the other hand, has decided not to return to CSULB for the
spring 2006 semester.
“I’m not going back to Long Beach [State], but I’m staying
in California,” he said.
Pouliot left Loyola University in New Orleans, when the hurricane hit during
the first week of school.
Once at CSULB, Pouliot, who majored in public relations, met with an academic
adviser to help him decide what classes he needed to take. However, getting
the right classes was not easy because he had to remember which transferable
courses he had taken at Loyola.
Three weeks into the fall 2005 semester, he received an e-mail from a previous
adviser at Loyola informing him he had already taken the classes he enrolled
in at CSULB. To pay for tuition, he took out a Federal Stafford Loan and received
money from FEMA, which he said that he will have to pay back.
Since deciding not to return to CSULB, he has moved nto a loft in Los Angeles,
which is closer to his job at a public relations firm.
“I’m doing a resume building semester,” he said.
Despite their different experiences at CSULB, DeJean, Beasley and Pouliot all
have remained optimistic about starting a new life in a new state.
|
