Juliana Cano commends CARE for helping her to succeed at FSU

By Arianna Bekas

Having a full plate in college is to be expected. For Juliana Cano, however, her full plate might as well be a serving tray.

Cano is a junior at Florida State University, majoring in English-Editing, Writing, and Media, with dual minors in Spanish and communications. She is supplementing her bachelor’s degree with an integrated marketing certificate. Cano also is a member of FSU’s Weightlifting Club and the Advertising Club, and she is a Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement student.

Saying she is busy would be an understatement.

How Cano manages to juggle everything comes down to her committed work ethic and the support she receives from the CARE Department.

“Honestly, I would not have been able to come to FSU, and have all the opportunities that I have, without CARE,” she says. “They have been so helpful.”

Cano is a first-generation student from Miami, and the idea of being a college student was overwhelming and unfamiliar to her, with only her mom to look to for support before entering CARE.

“We had no idea about anything that had anything to do with college, let alone FSU, which is so far from Miami,” Cano says.

The Summer Bridge Program, seven weeks that aim to ease the transition from K-12 classes to college for first-generation students and those from marginalized backgrounds, was an essential resource for Cano as she began her undergraduate studies at FSU. The Summer Bridge not only put her in contact with individuals at FSU that could guide her, she explains, but it also “helped me learn a lot about the resources that were available to me, and also the support that I had.”

Those discoveries, both inside and outside of CARE, have been integral to her college career. She was unable to pursue her initial major of choice, advertising, but Cano spoke with an advisor in the School of Communication, who introduced her to English-Editing, Writing, and Media as an alternative. Those studies, the advisor told her, would correspond with what she wanted to do in the future.

“I ended up staying in editing, writing, and media,” Cano says. “I feel like a lot of the classes really did correlate with each other, and I still felt like I was still getting a pretty well-rounded education.”

To expand her learning further, Cano studied abroad in Valencia, Spain, for the 2023 Summer B session, taking courses in International Programs’ Editing, Writing, and Media Program. She is one of 15 FSU students who earned a scholarship to study abroad through the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship Program.

She called the Gilman win “surreal,” and told FSU News, “I’ve always been a big dreamer and wanted to explore and my mom always encouraged that. Growing up with a single mom, I never really traveled so I want to take every opportunity to travel and learn about different cultures.”

Thanks to her Colombian roots Cano speaks Spanish, she says, although “Latin-American Spanish is different, but I’ll take a bit of the language with me.” That perspective aligns with the Gilman scholarship’s goal of giving students the opportunity to build proficiency in their chosen language and to prepare for a globalized world.

“I’ve always been fascinated with Spain and wanted to connect with people who speak Spanish,” Cano says.

The wide scope of English as a major and as a field both excited and scared Cano at first. While she was “really happy” to see that the content she was learning in her major and minors “all came full circle,” the breadth of career options with an English degree seemed somewhat daunting.

“My biggest struggle would definitely be deciding what I want, and the fear of not knowing what is next,” she says. “I always just grew up thinking that if you get good grades, you will get a good job but it’s not all about the grades it mostly depends on how you use your time and the impact you make with it.”

Cano admits she may struggle with certain aspects of her college experience, but the resources provided through CARE have been a sort of lifeline. She tells the story of how a CARE team leader from her time in the Summer Bridge has remained a source of support and guidance, even after the seven-week program came to an end.

Cano describes times when she was having problems with class assignments and feared she might fail out that she reached out to her former team leader for help.

“I was just asking for her advice, and she really calmed me down and helped me to put things into perspective,” she says.

The advice CARE staff members give to students is not related to just academic issues. In fact, anything that may be weighing on their mind, including personal issues at home or struggles with mental health, are addressed.

“You can ask them anything,” Cano says. “I’ve asked advisors about scholarship opportunities and I’ll tell them about my struggles at work and struggles socially. They are really helpful with everything.”

Cano emphasizes that because “there are so many factors in your life that can be going wrong,” having someone there to help with all of those concerns is extremely important when it comes to guiding a student’s success in college.

In terms of success, other first-generation students like herself may not initially be interested in majoring in English, which Cano explains is boiled down to one specific factor.

“Being first-generation, money is important, very very important,” she says. “I feel like a lot of people think that there is no money to be made with an English degree. Which was honestly something that I really took into consideration when I switched over.”

The more she learned about the endless opportunities and jobs that having an English degree makes possible, though, quelled her anxieties. She knows that if other first-generation students were aware of those possibilities, they too would not be as apprehensive to enter the field.

For Cano, the work assigned to her as an English major has been “practical” information that she sees herself applying to her preferred job in communications. While she has not quite settled on what she wants to do in the future, her hope, she says, is to pursue a job as either a creative director, brand analyst, or product manager.

“Being able to see the day-to-day work, and what it would look like, has made me really sure of, and really confident in my major. I really enjoy it,” Cano says, adding that her English major focus works well with her dual minors in Spanish and communications. Those three specializations make for an impressive resume to show future employers, she is certain.

While Cano’s initial vision for college may not have happened as she expected, she is making the most of it with her triple-threat diploma that will make her plate look fuller than those she competes against once she graduates from FSU.

Arianna Bekas is an English major on the editing, writing, and media track, with a minor in political science. She graduated at the end of the Summer 2023 semester.

Follow the English department on Instagram @fsuenglish; on Facebook facebook.com/fsuenglishdepartment/; and Twitter, @fsu_englishdept