Tag: Kate korepova

Revealing Different Layers of Pedro “Pete” Ramirez, Editor-in-Chief of ACCENT Student Media

The writer’s ever-changing journey to his current position has been a chart of restlessness and recklessness. 

Story by Angelica Ruzanova

Edited by Pete Ramirez

Growing up in the border town of Edinburg, Texas in the Lower Rio Grande Valley known for its multicultural populace and immigration controversies, Pedro “Pete” Ramirez’s curiosity about his community and people prospered at an early age. 

From orchestrating theatrical productions on stage at Texas State University to weaving his developed interest for photojournalism and writing on his personal email newsletter, Frontera Free Press, Ramirez embarked on an intuitive path to finding his “beat.”

“I would like to develop a beat which I can really focus on and potentially turn into an expertise,” he said. “I have a lot of different interests, and that’s really what fascinated me about journalism from the start. I love learning, and journalism allows me to learn a little about all the things I want.”

The mindset of the lifelong learner was cultivated after he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theater from Texas State University, and began yearning for something greater than the resemblance between what he sees of himself and what his sharpened awareness told him others expected him to be. From being a brand ambassador for an energy drink beverage company to going into third-party logistics in the freight industry and later working as an assistant manager at one of the properties owned by Austin’s Housing Authority, it was new and different each time. 

“I didn’t know what I wanted out of life,” Ramirez said. “And especially by this time, I have come to accept it. Everybody’s path is different and I am just going to enjoy the ride, learn as much as I can, and take care of people that are around me.”

Frontera Free Press, although overshadowed in the midst of his current positions, played a crucial role in developing his career in journalism after his involvement in an opportunity with the Google News Initiative which he stumbled upon while listening to a tech podcast. 

“[Frontera Free Press] was geared towards community-oriented news about people, events, and different kinds of situations people went through which were diluted by these big scandals on immigration on the news in that area of the state,” Ramirez said.

The door of the unwelcomed pandemic opened a glimpse of new turbulence. Ramirez, having once again redirected his career towards property tax law working as a paralegal, found himself at a standstill. 

In early 2020, as Ramirez made an impulsive decision to quit his law firm job to pursue a newfound job in culinary arts, Ramirez was thrown into the abyss of unemployment and became distraught as he watched the COVID-19 pandemic embed into daily life. “Here we are, in 2020. I was about to start a new career, and it all got whacked away,” Ramirez said.

At this point in life, Ramirez started taking journalism classes at Austin Community College, where he was referred to ACCENT, a student-led media organization. He began as a volunteer writer – taking any assignment that was thrown his way. The following semester, it seemed his superiors noticed the rushing enthusiasm to take on greater responsibilities. Ramirez was appointed as the editor-in-chief in the summer of 2021. 

“Pete became ACCENT’s editor-in-chief at the most confusing and rough times,” said Kate Korepova, the Art Director of ACCENT Student Media. “He never thought of leaving the organization, but rather did everything possible to keep the staff happy and positive, only hoping for the best. He sympathizes with every member and is always willing to help.”

Ramirez’s future goals are pragmatic, as he strives to build a steady portfolio and carries hopes to one day move onto his dream job working as a reporter for the Texas Tribune. “I would like to be a better journalist, applying the AP style and distinguishing between ethical and unethical scenarios as there are a lot of gray areas.”

Ramirez’s journey, though rugged and unpredictable, echoed a portentous road of new beginnings. 

“I approach it as never being able to stop growing and developing. Really, nobody ever does,” Ramirez said. “We are always changing. That’s the only constant in life – change, within everybody and everywhere in the world around us.”

This story was produced in Professor Paul Brown’s spring 2022 News Reporting class and a nearly exact version can be found on their class website, ACC Star. In collaboration with Professor Brown and with his express permission, we published the story here on ACCENT’s website.

Valentine’s Day For All

Story by Gloria Nguyen

Graphic by Kate Korepova

Edited by Pete Ramirez

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! 

Americans have been celebrating Valentine’s Day since the 19th century but the holiday became ubiquitous early in the 20th century. 

Nowhere in the world is Valentine’s Day celebrated as wildly as in the U.S. Much like during the Christmas holiday season, stores are filled with rose-colored products weeks beforehand.

Contrary to popular belief, Valentine’s Day is not just for romantic love. Your best friend, grandpa, teacher, or even your favorite colleague from the office may participate in exchanging valentines.

Valentine’s Day is ultimately about celebrating love – which at its heart involves the connection and unconditional acceptance of another.

One thing about Valentine’s Day that is slowly starting to change is that historically, there hasn’t been much room for the LGBTQ community at the table.

Supervising editor at National Public Radio, Arnie Seipel, wrote about how the origins of Valentine’s Day are heteronormative itself. 

Seipel writes that the early Romans would celebrate the feast of Lupercalia during Feb. 13 to 15 which would culminate in “a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar.” The new couple would be paired up for the duration of the festival or longer if the match was right. 

Even though our society seems to slowly make progress LGBTQ couples may feel like they are not able to be affectionate in public because of the recent surge of anti-LGBTQ laws being passed and toxic rhetoric coming from some mainstream media entities.

According to NBC News, recent FBI data suggests that “crimes based on bias against trans and gender non-conforming people continued to increase.”

The ramifications of these threats against the LGBTQ community are even being felt in colleges across the U.S. In a recent survey of LGBTQ college students published by Intelligent, 61% said they’ve experienced more discrimination since Dave Chappelle’s Netflix special aired last year, which features transphobic and homophobic jokes. 

Although Valentine’s Day does not directly help fight the day-to-day inequalities of our society, we can choose to participate in the holiday while continuing to be an ally to the LGBTQ community.

Here are some ways you can celebrate Valentine’s Day and support your local LGBTQ community.

Make Your Own Valentine’s Gifts

One way to avoid the commercialization and heteronormative standards of Valentine’s Day is to make your own valentines gifts. 

This does not necessarily need to be about your partner. Your gifts can be sent to members of your family or your chosen family and friends.

Batman & Robin illustrated on a Valentine's Day card in a kissing embrace.

Valentine’s Day has been traditionally been a holiday that companies like Hallmark have used to target straight couples with products and advertisements. In recent years, companies have begun to make their products and ads much more inclusive to the LGBTQ community.
Photo by: @proyectoalegria

Shop At LGBTQ-owned Businesses

Shopping and hanging out at LGBTQ-owned businesses is another way to directly support your local LGBTQ community. Hotel San Jose, Tamalitoz and FLAVNT are a few in Austin you can consider. Check out more at this list of queer-owned businesses in Austin that Do512 compiled.

Practice Self-care

Valentine’s Day can be triggering for people depending on their dating history. If you were in a bad relationship or experienced trauma because of your dating history, Valentine’s Day can feel even more overwhelming. 

If this is the case for you, taking care of yourself is much more imperative on Valentine’s Day than usual. 

Be kind to yourself. Take time to look in the mirror and tell yourself “I love you.” Whatever you choose to do, make sure that you feel good about yourself while you’re doing it. 

Practicing self-care should be done for yourself every day – and not just on Valentine’s Day. Remember that Valentine’s Day is just another day. Regardless of how you feel about it, your relationship status, sexual orientation or gender identity, you are valid and you will get through the day.

Surround yourself with positive people and remind yourself that love doesn’t have to look the way it is commercialized to you. 

Keep doing you. You are loved!

Mindfulness for Beginners

Story by Pete Ramirez

Graphic by Kate Korepova

Let’s face it, life is crazy right now and there is no sugar-coating it. In our fast-paced world, it’s easy to jump from one activity to the next, like a busy bumblebee flying from flower to flower collecting pollen. 

Don’t you just want to take a break to catch your breath sometimes? 

You can! 

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a moment to try one of these three simple mindfulness exercises:

1.

  • Find a comfortable, quiet space.
  •  Sit, stand, or lay down.
  • Take 10 deep breaths into your belly.
  • Don’t force it.

2.

  • Find a comfortable place to sit.
  • Set a timer for five minutes
  • Close your eyes if it’s safe to do so or leave them open.
  • Listen to the sounds around you.
  • Hear the layers of sound that surround us throughout the day. 
  • Let the sounds come and go.

3.

  • Take a ten-minute walk.
  •  Focus on the world around you. 
  • Try to take in the minor details that usually get overlooked. 
  • Feel the sunshine on your skin.
  • The wind through your hair.
  • The ground beneath your feet.

If you did any of the exercises listed above, guess what? 

You just practiced meditation! 

Studies have shown that practicing mindfulness meditations can have many beneficial effects on the body and mind such as decreased stress, improved sleep and improved attention span.

Here are a few additional tips:

  • Don’t expect your thoughts to stop. Even master yogis deal with a never-ending stream of thoughts. A different way to think about it is telling each thought, “Hey! Welcome to the party.”

  • Be kind to yourself. However you show up to the exercise is the right way.

  • Allow yourself a few minutes to take a break everyday. Things will be ok.

Now, all together. Let’s take a deep breath in…

And release.

You got this.

Your Finals Survival Guide

Graphic by Kate Korepova

Story by Gloria Nguyen

Edited by Pete Ramirez

Finals season is here. It’s time for us to push through the last few weeks of the semester and finish off in a positive way. 

With final projects, essays and tests to worry about, this time of year can be extremely hectic and stressful for students. It can be daunting to find motivation during finals week when all you want to do is cuddle under a thick blanket and drink hot chocolate, but don’t let yourself off the hook just yet! 

To help you survive finals week, we’ve gathered tips and preparation advice from Austin Community College students and academic coaches. 

ACC student, Victoria Regalado, keeps the studying habit of slowly exposing herself to the content of her class over time. 

Regalado likes to run through the materials posted on Blackboard before class to become familiar with what her professor is going to talk about. This practice keeps her engaged with the materials that may appear on future tests and lessens the burden of cramming in all the concepts at the last minute. 

Like most students, Regalado has had some difficulties preparing for her finals in the past. Last semester was Regalado’s first semester at ACC and she admits she did not know how to prepare for exams or what to expect during finals. 

“I was in a class where we weren’t given that many details about what would be on the final, so I had no idea what to focus on,” Regalado said. “I was freaking out.”

To push through that difficult time, Regalado reached out to her classmates to exchange the information they had about the finals. She also looked over past exams to try to identify the professor’s testing style. 

“It’s kind of comforting to know that many people are on the same boat with you,” Regalado said. “We helped each other and the final results turned out well.”

Being an engineering major at ACC demands Alya Mansoor to be a strict planner. Mansoor says she works on school work from the afternoon until evening time. 

An image of a young woman wearing glasses and headphones studying for an exam using her textbook and her laptop computer.
Alya Mansoor, engineering student at ACC, studies for an upcoming exam.

“A big thing that I do to keep the balance between my work life and study life is to create a structured schedule,” Mansoor said. “At the beginning of the school year, I’ll get a big calendar and write down all of my deadlines for homework and exams. As time goes on, I’ll fill in things that pop up too” 

This calendar helps her keep track of due dates and allows her to plan out her work ahead of time. 

To study for finals, Mansoor formulates a study plan catered to each class based on previous exams and the professor’s formatting. If she has an upcoming textbook-heavy exam, she will focus on her textbooks and support her studying by reviewing notes and homework. 

“If I have an exam that relies on homework and practice, like Calculus, I’ll work through problem after problem and review my notes again.” 

For a cumulative exam, Mansoor takes a different approach. “That’s a longer process and I have to start ahead of time and pay close attention to the course materials from the beginning of the class,” Mansoor said. 

Because Mansoor says she fidgets frequently and is not good at concentrating for long periods of time, she uses the Pomodoro technique to study productively. 

Using this method, you break down your working time into 25-minute chunks (pomodoros) separated by five-minute breaks. After about four pomodoros, you take a longer break of about 15 to 20 minutes. This technique can help anyone who feels distracted or overwhelmed to focus their attention on the task at hand. 

“I’m using the Pomodoro method and I’ll keep using that,” Mansoor said. “It helps me keep my concentration better, especially for something big like finals.”

Sherry Yang, an academic coach at ACC, notices that a common mistake students make when studying for finals is procrastination. 

An image of a beautiful smiling woman with long hair looking towards the camera.
One of ACC’s many academic coaches, Sherry Yang.

“Some students didn’t plan ahead and didn’t know how much time they needed to prepare for finals,” Yang said. “In worse cases, some students barely studied until the final days.” 

This habit of barely studying leads students to cram all the information at the last minute and results in poor retention of the material and lower test scores. 

“If you try to stay up late to memorize as much as you can, usually you’re going to feel tired the next day and not going to remember a lot of information,” Yang said.

When students come to Yang for advice, she recommends at least two weeks to prepare for a big test. 

“Let’s say if they have a test on Friday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., we recommend students to study in the afternoon from 2 or 3 o’clock for the two weeks before the final,” Yang said. “That way, you can get used to doing those kinds of subjects in that time frame. On the actual test day, you’re not going to get super anxious and stressed out.”

This semester, ACC has been hosting a mix of in-person and virtual classes. For either type of class, Yang recommends familiarizing yourself with the environment you are going to be in during your exam. 

“If you’re going to take your test in front of your desk, you’ll want to study in front of your desk a while before the exam day,” Yang said. “If you’re going to take a test in a class, it might be better to study in a library or a public place. If you get too comfortable studying at home, taking a test in a different environment with people around may make you feel anxious and overwhelmed.”


Preparing for your final exams can be overwhelming, especially during the ongoing challenges of the pandemic. If you have had difficulty studying for finals, book an appointment with ACC academic coaches at their website. Academic coaches are available on several campuses district-wide.

Good luck to everyone with your finals!