{"id":20653,"date":"2013-04-15T09:09:22","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T13:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=20653"},"modified":"2022-09-26T11:47:56","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T15:47:56","slug":"college-experience-for-student-victor-colon-includes-lending-a-sympathetic-ear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/04\/15\/college-experience-for-student-victor-colon-includes-lending-a-sympathetic-ear\/","title":{"rendered":"College experience for student Victor Colon includes lending a sympathetic ear"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Victor Colon has studied Spanish, Italian, French and Chinese at Wright State.<\/p><\/div>\n

The phone rings in the middle of the night, jarring him awake. On the line is a Wright State student in a full-blown meltdown over a personal crisis\u2014a failed test, financial worries or a broken heart.<\/p>\n

Relying on his own experience of overcoming challenges and fears, 22-year-old Victor Colon talks the student through it.<\/p>\n

The assistant community director at Forest Lane Apartments\u2014who worked three years as a resident advisor before that\u2014is no stranger to emotional emergencies. It comes with the territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have gotten to the point where people respect me\u2014not only respect me\u2014but listen to me,\u201d Colon said. \u201cAnd they call me at two or three in the morning to say, \u2018Victor, I\u2019m struggling with this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Colon was born and grew up in Puerto Rico. With the help of a strong-willed mother, Colon and his three younger siblings successfully avoided the drug dealing and other criminal activity on the mean streets of Juana Diaz, an impoverished village on the southern coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was survival mode,\u201d Colon recalled. \u201cMy mom is the reason I was able to come out of that. She was very strict.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were always chores for her children. She pushed them to get good grades and encouraged them to get involved in school activities. Colon was active in baseball and basketball, which he credited with keeping him out of trouble.<\/p>\n

When Colon was in sixth grade, his mother lost her job helping manage a hotel. In hopes of securing a financial future, she moved the entire family to Sidney, Ohio, where her brother lived and worked. She landed a job at Stolle Machinery, and her kids landed in school able to speak very little English.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest challenge was the language barrier,\u201d Colon said. \u201cI had no idea what people were saying. It was just such a big hurdle to get over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, it was Colon\u2019s mother who stepped in, helping her kids learn English within six months.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the one that sat down with us for an extra hour-and-a-half just to study English,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Colon continued to play sports\u2014baseball, basketball, track and football, in which he played both fullback and linebacker and was a captain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how I stayed out of trouble, that\u2019s how I did well in school, that\u2019s how I stayed responsible, and it was a good way to be a role model for my siblings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Colon is proud of his Latino descent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I talk about every chance I get,\u201d he said. \u201cI love my culture and how rich it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it came time for college, Colon wanted to stay close to his family. Wright State seemed like a perfect fit. He arrived with the intent to study engineering, but quickly changed his major to modern languages. He has since studied Spanish, Italian, French and Chinese.<\/p>\n

When he was a freshman, Colon was inspired by his resident advisor and decided to become one his sophomore year and for the following two years. At Forest Lane, he currently helps oversee roughly 300 students in four buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery single RA has a different style. I built community the way I wanted to. It was based off of my personality and the way I worked,\u201d Colon said. \u201cYou could tell the students were receiving it well because they would come to my events and come to my door just to hang out. They would come to talk to me when they had problems. It was very gratifying to me when I saw the results of my own work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The toughest part of the job is when Colon has to confront people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a confrontational person; I\u2019m comfortable with it, but I\u2019d rather not do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To relax, Colon listens to music. He also loves dancing to salsa music and has been playing the guitar for the past five years. But the best de-stresser for him is his religious faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt lets me know that everything is already taken care of; it\u2019s already planned,\u201d he said. \u201cThat keeps me from worrying about the things that I can\u2019t control. When I know there\u2019s nothing for me to worry about, I can do my job to the best of my ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to majoring in languages, Colon is studying criminal justice and has an internship with Montgomery County Juvenile Court. After college, he would like to have a job in which he can counsel troubled youth and keep them out of the criminal-justice system.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m helping a young adult through their problems by diving into their emotional state, I really believe I can have a positive impact on them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Colon, who graduates in April, said he has had a great experience at Wright State.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t have asked for more,\u201d he said. \u201cWright State is so willing to take you in and just mold you, transform you into a top-notch student.\u201d<\/p>\n

And Colon said coming out of Wright State has him wanting to leave a legacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s here or in a kid\u2019s heart or a fellow student or a resident,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to leave something to be remembered, something that can be related to the great experiences that I\u2019ve had at Wright State University.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The phone rings in the middle of the night, jarring him awake. On the line is a Wright State student in a full-blown meltdown over a personal crisis\u2014a failed test, financial worries or a broken heart. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":20656,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,725,4863,747,715,4855,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-home-news-sidebar","category-humanities-and-cultural-studies","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-sciences-and-international-studies","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20653"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129605,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653\/revisions\/129605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}