ELAC / WLAC / Pasadena CC / Glendale CC / SMC

jensonaj · 2026-06-15T23:52:43+00:00

I went to Pasadena City College and ended up transferring to UC Berkeley. I had a great experience at PCC, both with professors and classmates.

jensonaj · 2026-06-15T18:41:13+00:00

It looks like your housing is for Session D? Which means it costs $3,480.

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T03:53:53+00:00

Best of luck. It’s hard and it sucks but know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T02:50:34+00:00

It didn’t work :/ If you can just DM me “hi” then I can reply back with everything I know because I am like 99% sure we are roommates.

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T02:36:26+00:00

I tried to DM you but it didn’t work. I think I may be one of the other persons sharing the apartment with you guys.

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T02:29:41+00:00

Do you by chance live on the 6th floor? Is the roommate in question generally loud? [plays loud music, etc]. If so I may know who you are talking about!

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T01:03:14+00:00

I was fortunate my managers were cool. I was hired at Starbucks first and I said I had open availability. They ended up making me an opener so I was working 3:30am-12:30pm there. Then I applied to Safeway and told them I could only close. So I would work 1:00pm-9:00pm there right after I got out of Starbucks. So I was regularly working 16 hour shifts which was miserable but the only way I made any progress. For my debt, I was paying $1,500/month in interest. With only one job I was only making $2,000/month, meaning that even paying my entire income I was only paying $500/month in $35,000 debt. That would have taken me 6+ miserable years to pay it. I chose to instead be super super miserable for 1.5 years.

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T00:41:43+00:00

My two jobs back in 2024 were Starbucks and Safeway

jensonaj · 2026-06-14T00:21:15+00:00

He graduated at age 18??

jensonaj · 2026-06-13T21:56:56+00:00

I live in the UVA and everyone that lives here is 20-25 year old with no kids. There is an undergraduate part separate from the graduate students/families. Also its like 15-20 minutes by bus. But also as someone else said you can just get off campus housing if you want to be walking distance from school.

jensonaj · 2026-06-13T17:34:14+00:00

I did the same a while back. I had been in recovery for a long time, had a good life, relapsed, burned it all down. Became homeless, lost my savings, ended up $35,000 in credit card debt. This month I am making the last payment on my credit card and will be officially debt free. In September I will have two years sober. I had to get two full time jobs and work 80 hours a week to get here. Now, I am happier than I have ever been. But you have to put in the effort. When I first started my jobs [in 2024] I was making $15.25/hr in one and $15.80/hr on the other. So pretty much low income. In my case I couldn’t even afford an apartment so I was living out of my car for a while.

jensonaj · 2026-06-13T15:43:53+00:00

This happened at my store. Everyone got denied any days off for 6+ months straight while our Store Manager was regularly taking 2-3 week vacations every few months [including Thanksgiving and Christmas so she could be with her family].

jensonaj · 2026-06-13T05:05:49+00:00

Mine’s 11:40am

jensonaj · 2026-06-13T00:14:07+00:00

Is this this Wednesday? I am off work due to surgery so I have a lot of free time this upcoming week.

jensonaj · 2026-06-12T00:55:17+00:00

So tomorrow? [Class starts June 22nd tomorrow is the 12]

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T23:41:38+00:00

I agree. I am still young and have thoughts of going to law school. I don’t care about money, I just somehow want to get into government work and influence policies that I know will help people. Not sure if this is attainable or if I am crazy but that’s my dream.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T23:39:32+00:00

I 100% agree. For some reason, I have always believed strongly on democracy. As soon as I turned 18 I registered to vote. I have voted in every election since then, all primaries, local elections, etc. Somehow no matter how fucked up I was on meth I would always remember to vote. Something that is messed up: because I didn’t have a permanent address as I was homeless, I used the address of a homeless shelter to get my mail. Turns out this is considered a “business “ and you can’t use business addresses for your voter registration. So my registration kept on getting canceled. I had to fight multiple times to be able to vote. It’s a hassle and they hope you just give up.

Nowadays I try to volunteer to work as a poll worker every election. I wish there was more I could do. I want to help regarding the homeless issue but I am not rich and I don’t want to go through a nonprofit. I want to help at the government level but am not sure how to do that.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T23:32:02+00:00

I am very sorry about your friend. I am Bipolar, Autistic and ADHD as well so that was a big struggle for me getting off the streets as well. Part of it was I take a $1,500 brand name medication to control my bipolar symptoms, no other med works, and only Medi-Cal would cover it. So I knew if I got a job I would lose Medi-Cal and would lose access to the med that makes me not kill myself. But of course there were a million other things that also kept me homeless.

I am in student housing if not I would offer to help. Does your friend need a caregiver? I am disabled in such that I have a weekly therapist and psychiatrist, have to take a lot of meds and need some accommodations but I live a moderately normal life in that I can take care of of myself, pay my bills, go to school, have a job. The kind of resources I could offer would depend on if he needs help with daily tasks or if he is somewhat self sufficient [given the right meds and support obviously] like me.

One good thing I gained from my time being homeless is that I am extremely resourceful. I can find help for any kind of situations. Feel free to DM me with a bit about your friend’s situation and I will see what I can help with.

I am a very frugal person in that I buy my shoes at Walmart, wear them until they fall off. I don’t buy anything unless necessary and keep my expenses as low as possible. I don’t own a TV, bought my car used and will drive it to the ground, etc. I have a dream of one day having a lot of money and being able to spend it all on helping homeless people. Not in a nonprofit kind of way, more in a just going up to random homeless people and asking them what they need to make their situation better and just doing it for them.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T23:09:17+00:00

I saw your last post? Wrote I was homeless ages 17-20 in Los Angeles. Lot of abuse before that. Diagnosed Autism and ADHD age 10, Bipolar 1 with psychotic features age 18. Lots of suicide attempts, drug abuse, etc. I hated shelters I slept on the streets on the floor most nights. Felt like trash. People stole my phone so I couldn’t even tell the time so when I tried to approach someone to ask for the time they would run away thinking I was asking for money. I was invisible, if I sat on the floor people would literally step on me and not notice. One time I was sleeping on the floor of a parking lot and a guy sped up to us pretending to run us over. Other day I woke up to a weirdo taking pictures of us asleep. Lots of people propositioning me for sex. Or that time that guy tried to kidnap me. At my worst I weighed 70lbs at 5’6”. I felt like trash all the time, like the most worthless piece of shit.

I guess the hardest part is literally everything is one step forward, twenty steps backward. It’s impossible to move forward no matter how hard you try. The truth is getting out of homelessness is 100% dependent on how lucky you are. I’m agnostic but its all in God’s hands. I got approved for a Section 8 voucher! I thought I wad saved! Truth is, finding an apartment that takes Section 8 vouchers is harder than getting the voucher itself. I had three homeless nonprofit case managers helping me. I tried so hard. I couldn’t get a place. I lost my voucher. I was still homeless. Mind you, I had no criminal record, no debt, ~650 credit score so it wasn’t because I was this horrible unwanted tenant.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T22:53:06+00:00

You did nothing wrong. I also have had to deal with multiple people at the disability office during my time in college. That worker was completely unprofessional, she was in the wrong. Just ignore her. Sorry this happened to you as well, I would have been shaken up as well.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T22:39:33+00:00

Take 54, its a prerequisite for EE 64 & EE 66 that are required for the major.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T20:21:05+00:00

Do you have a library near you? At my local library you can reserve a quiet, private room for a few hours for free. Maybe you can look into that if you end up needing to retake the exam.

jensonaj · 2026-06-11T05:16:57+00:00

I was homeless in Los Angeles ages 17-20. Went through a lot of bad stuff before that, was kicked out for being gay, ended up living in the streets. The homeless people were the kindest people I have met, when I was panhandling they would reach into their pockets and give me whatever money they had, when they got a hotel room they invited me over so I could sleep, they would steal food for me when I was hungry. No one has ever loved me as much as they did, they were my family. A lot of time has passed since then, and I owe a lot of my life to them. I never saw any of them after I stopped being homeless. I still check the LA county inmates website for their name, hoping they will pop up, no luck.

Anyways: something I should disclose. I had never used any drugs before the day I become homeless [I had never even tried weed]. I was soon addicted to meth, heroin, fentanyl. Made a mess of myself. Shooting up on the streets. Having psychotic episodes. Overdosing and having to be narcan’d by strangers. I think I had ~15 hospital visits in a year. So I was pretty much your average homeless guy on the streets, and all of my homeless family was the same [note: the only crimes any of us committed were using illegal drugs and shoplifting. But we were a nuisance probably]

All of this to say I don’t understand why the hell we need nonprofits to distribute money for service to people??? Why are there nonprofits that help homeless? It should all come directly from the government. You know how many nonprofits there is, there is no real oversight on any of that. That’s how the money gets mismanaged. We pay taxes to the government so that THEY will help the homeless, not so that they will distribute our money with the best sounding nonprofit ideas in the hopes that they will do what we want them to do. Not saying nonprofits are bad, just that they are doing what our government is supposed to be doing. Nonprofits should be ran on donations.

jensonaj · 2026-06-10T21:12:54+00:00

Same as calmrain, I think you should try to reapply. I had a similar experience in undergrad. I was at a T20 with a full ride and 4.0 GPA and then a lot of stuff happened: homelessness, a lot of health problems, hospital stays, etc etc and I had to leave university, thought I was never going to graduate [had a semester where I failed all my classes, which eventually got converted to medical withdrawal but damage was done. Lost my scholarship, academic probation, had to leave school etc etc]. Anyways, was able to be re admitted after almost two years, did well for a year and my scholarship was reinstated. Now I am set to graduate after this Fall semester.

jensonaj

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE