Semester Update from CSUSM's SHRM Chapter

by Sabrina Meleka, CSUSM SHRM Co-President

            Hi SD SHRM members! My name is Sabrina Meleka and I’m the Co-President of CSUSM’s SHRM chapter. We’ve just finished up a phenomenal semester and I’m excited to share some key events with you all! To kick off the semester, we focused on student-to-student networking through the use of Zoom breakout rooms and general introductions. These introductory events served as great opportunities to meet fellow HR students, form study groups, and much more! As the semester progressed, we had the good fortune to hear from some amazing HR professionals. For example, SD SHRM’s very own Emily Mullin graciously presented to our society and informed us students on the great benefits of joining SD SHRM. As a result, we had some of our student members sign up to become SD SHRM members, which we are very excited about. Lastly, we recently hosted our very first alumni panel, which was a great success! Our alumni panel consisted of 4 previous CSUSM SHRM members who shared their experiences of transitioning from students to full-time HR professionals. Overall, we’re thankful to wrap up a meaningful semester with support of SD SHRM and CSUSM’s College of Business Administration. 

I will now be passing the blog over to Madison and Charlease, both of whom are CSUSM SHRM officers who will soon be transitioning into new roles. 

Hello SD SHRM members, my name is Madison Farfan and I will be the incoming Co-President for the SHRM Chapter at California State University San Marcos. Over the past few weeks, I have been transitioning out of my role of Vice President and familiarizing myself with the roles and responsibilities of the Co-President position. My goal for next semester is to participate in more outreach programs and events to target the incoming freshman. The society will continue to grow if we attract and retain younger members who will hopefully take on leadership roles in the future. Since our Fall 2021 meetings will still be held virtually, my other goal is to keep engagement high. I hope to continue our incentive program by raffling off gift cards and partnering with HR Management professors who agree to offer their students extra credit for attending our meetings. 

When I first became a member of CSUSM SHRM, I was afraid to step out of my comfort zone, afraid to ask questions, and had low self-confidence. When the opportunity opened up for the secretary position for SHRM, I told myself that if I want to succeed and grow into the person I want to become, I needed to apply for the position. Once I got the position, I could see the small growth that was happening. Once the vice president position opened, the feelings came up if I was qualified enough for the position but decided to pursue to step out of my comfort zone once again. Once I got the position, I was confronting the fears that were holding me back. Being part of CSUSM SHRM has opened opportunities I never thought would happen. CSUSM SHRM help me realize what I want to pursue as a career and opened my eyes to other opportunities ahead of me.

2021 CSUSM SHRM Board Members

by Christina Huynh, CSUSM SHRM President

As we head into the semester, we would like to share our board members for Spring 2021. Our Co-Presidents, Sabrina Meleka and Christina Huynh, our Vice President, Madison Farfan, our secretary Charlese Tyson, our treasurer Megan Trahan, our marketing director, Jazmin Flores, and our faculty advisor, Pierre Towns. Most of our board members took on a new position this semester and have spent winter break transitioning to our new roles. We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful board. Our members have shown a great amount of effort in preparing for the semester. We’ve had two board meetings prior to the semester to discuss succession planning and happenings for the semester. Our goal is to grow our society and gain member retention. In order to do so, we plan on providing virtual gift cards to one member at the end of each meeting, initiate HR related games, work closely with professors to provide extra credit opportunities, and recruit new members through the CoBA meet and greet. Additionally, we have worked closely with our VP Madison and marketing director Jazmin to create a class pitch video to help with the recruitment process. We made sure to send this video to all management professors, all HR related classes and business development classes known as BUS 300. Membership costs will be completely free this semester as a result of our virtual setting. Additionally, all students are invited to SHRM meetings and we encourage their participation.

We will have a total of six bi-weekly meetings this semester. Our first meeting will consist of introductions and social networking. For our second meeting, we will open the floor to our faculty advisor Pierre Towns who will share his background and touch base on the different functions of HR. For our third meeting, we have the honor of having Emily Mullin come and discuss the benefits of becoming a SD SHRM student member and the importance of networking.  Juan Carlos Gallardo will join our fourth meeting to share his expertise in employee engagement/performance as how to keep retention in the workplace. At our fifth meeting, we will share the floor with Felipe Angel who has a background in recruitment. Lastly,  we will be hosting our very first alumni panel where we will have recent grads come share life after graduation, job searching, and so much more. We are so thankful to have speakers who are willing to donate their time with us and share their knowledge and experiences with the society.

We are excited to start this semester and look forward to watching the society continuously grow!

A Note from the President of the California State University San Marcos Student SHRM Chapter

by Amanda Shepherd, CSUSM SHRM President

As the spring semester comes to an end, I am so fortunate to be able to reflect on what an amazing semester we have had here at Cal State San Marcos. Together as a society, we came together to unite students who were interested in pursuing HR. Our society grew substantially over the course of this semester, and we had the pleasure of hosting a total of six meetings this semester with influential guest speakers and a great group of students.

Starting from the beginning of the semester, we worked hard to recruit new members to our society. With an impressive jump in our society member count from last semester, we believe we did a tremendous job advertising and selling our society to interested students around campus. I am a very proud president because I believe that my board members worked together so well to pull the society together. With the help of our Treasurer, Elena Ornelas, Secretary, Alexa Cordero, Director of Community Relations, Virgen Gonzalez, and Director of Social Media, Jazmin Flores, we worked hard together to make sure our organization was functioning both in person, in our community, and online. In addition, our amazing faculty adviser, Nina Woodard, was there with us every step of the way to give us feedback, guidance and great ideas. Being able to form great connections with our society members and watching the society continuously grow were such rewarding aspects of being a part of the society these last few months.   

Our excited CSUSM SHRM member, Andrew, holding up our flyer after signing up to be on the mailing list for CSUSM SHRM this semester.

This semester, we were really excited to design our first ever CSUSM SHRM T-shirts. They were a great hit with our members, and they really helped us to feel united and proud to be a part of the organization on campus. Our treasurer, Elena Ornelas, also created her very own fundraiser for CSUSM SHRM this semester which showcased her artistic and creative talents. Using her Cricut printer, she was able to print and sell unique, personal designs that could be transferred to a variety of materials such as vinyl and cloth. With cool CSUSM SHRM sticker designs and great personalized gift ideas, Elena played a great role this semester in making our SHRM society extra money to put toward funding our future society events.

Our society posing with our amazing guest speaker, Sandra Fichter.

Our society intently listening to our guest speaker, Pierre Towns, discuss his fundamental HR philosophy.

Our society posing with our motivational guest speaker, David Berry.

Our SHRM Board at our Last Meeting 4/25: Jazmin Flores (Director of Social Media), Alexa Cordero (Secretary), Nina Woodard (Faculty Adviser), Amanda Shepherd (President), Virgen Gonzalez (Director of Community Outreach) Missing from Photo: Elena Ornelas (Treasurer).

At the end of the semester, we were super excited to have the opportunity to attend the 4^th Annual HR Career Day where our society members had the chance to interact with HR professionals around San Diego. We took so much from the great professionals and we are really thankful to San Diego SHRM for putting on such an incredible event.

Speed-interviewing sessions with professionals from diverse HR backgrounds.

Our CSUSM SHRM Turnout: (Back Row) Brent Allen, Jocelyn Renfro (Front Row) Fabiola Aguilar, Amanda Shepherd, Sally Tsai, Bianca Sanchez.

Friendships and smiles all around during the HR Career Day!

We are sincerely looking forward to our continuing growth going into the future. I am excited to announce that our society will be having some presidential changes coming up as well. As I prepare to step down as President after next semester, I have our wonderful Treasurer, Elena Ornelas, ready and eager to take the role, and our fantastic Secretary, Alexa Cordero, ready to step in as Vice President. CSUSM SHRM wishes every one a great and safe summer!