A Student’s Success

Youstina Salib is a peer tutor hired to help students taking ESL classes at Bergen Community College. She wrote this autobiography for the English Language Resource Center (ELRC) fall newsletter to be shared with the faculty who teach composition and ESL classes.

Hello! My name is Youstina Salib. This is my third semester and second year at BCC. I’m majoring in biology, but when I transfer, I’m planning on changing my major to neuroscience since I find the brain and the way it functions really interesting! I am from Cairo, Egypt. I have been in the United States for almost 5 years now.

Before I moved to the United States, I only knew how to speak a few basic English sentences. When I was in high school, I had to take ESL classes. I stayed in ESL for two years before my teacher decided I didn’t need to be in ESL anymore. When I was in ESL, I felt most comfortable since I was mainly among students who could only speak as little English as me. I used to be embarrassed by my accent and the way I pronounced certain words. I didn’t like that about me, so I decided to make a change. I studied hard, translating every single word in the textbook, and even preparing for all my classes ahead of time to be able to understand the lessons better. My hard work paid off, and my language slowly started to improve over time. I graduated high school with a 3.7 GPA, and now I’m at BCC pursuing an associate’s degree in biology and helping people who have the same struggles I once had.

I love my experience in the ELRC so far. Not only does it allow me to provide people with the help they need, but it also helps me meet new people and make new friends from different backgrounds and cultures. I enjoy sharing cultural differences and asking them to teach me words and sentences in their language and seeing the excitement in my students whenever I ask them to teach me about their languages and cultures. That’s what I like the most about being a tutor in the ELRC: we all get to exchange knowledge and differences! I am looking forward to meeting new students and getting to know more about them in the spring semester!

Reprinted with the author’s permission by Marilyn Pongracz, ELRC Supervisor