By Michelle Karparis | Staff Writer
With graduation quickly approaching, seniors across campus are tying together all of the loose ends to their time at Salve and preparing to dive headfirst into the real world. (Only 61 days left people!) Among those eager seniors is RA Juan Roldán.
Juan is a Global Business and Economics double major, with a double minor in Spanish and Business Administration. This is his third year as an RA and he is currently living in Ochre Lodge’s living and learning community. This community focuses on understanding and appreciating diversity on many different levels.
“Boundaries are something that I don’t have anymore,” Juan explained how he has changed as a result of being an RA, “I used to be shy and kind of keep to myself.”
If you have ever met or even seen Juan around campus, you would see that he is now anything but shy. In the past, he has been involved in the Multicultural Student Organization, and he is currently the treasurer of three clubs: American Sign Language, Spanish Club, and Salve Studios. He also founded Salve’s very own Gentlemen’s Society.
The Gentlemen’s Society began with the mission of teaching guys how to behave towards women. It boasts a devotion for community service, being kind to people, and teaching different mannerisms and professional skills. “It’s evolved into something bigger,” he explained, “and actually a lot of our members are girls.”
Juan is also super dedicated to community service activities. This year, he was recognized as one of Salve’s service advocates for dedicating 150 hours of service at a nonprofit organization. For Juan, most of those hours came from his time at the Norman Bird Sanctuary in the marketing department.
In addition to that, Juan has participated in several campus-run community service opportunities. These include the service trip to Washington, D.C., as well as Service Plunge 2.0, and the winter break trip to Nicaragua. “When we’re here at Salve we’re kind of in a bubble and we don’t realize that there are so many people in need just down the street,” he said.
With all of that being said, Juan has definitely made a significant mark here on campus. But, with 61 days to go, he has started thinking about the mark he will make after Salve as well. He said that he will miss the mission of mercy that Salve represents, “but I’m not going to miss it at the same time because it’s a part of who I am now.”
When asked where he will go from here, he expressed that he was not entirely sure where he would end up. For the time being, he is an intern at Bank Newport in community relations and marketing, and hopes to start there full-time. “I want a job that doesn’t feel like a job,” he said. Creative work having to do with photography or cinematography is something he also plans on looking into.
Looking back on his time at Salve, Juan says there are a lot more things that he will miss. He is grateful for the opportunity to gain skills such as budgeting, being financially smart, and community building through his experiences. “These are skills that I’m going to use for the rest of my life,” he said.
Most of all, Juan explained that he would miss Salve’s “small, but very caring community.” He has grown used to walking across campus and always seeing someone he knows to smile at and say hi to. Now, he says, “I’ll give that smile that I learned to have here at Salve to hopefully make people’s days in the real world.”
