Meet our New
"Faces of HSS"
The students of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences represent close to 8000 different lives, each one with a unique story about the journey that lead them to Cal State Fullerton and to their academic major our College. To celebrate the diverse stories that our students bring with them and the collection of stories that create the identity of Humanities and Social Science, we will introduce additional new “faces of HSS” throughout the year. We begin with the three students whose smiles adorn the banners hanging on the front of the Humanities and Social Sciences building to announce our values to the campus.
Halima Mohammed Baba
Criminal Justice
Junior
Halima Baba is heavily invested in national and international politics. She writes a blog where she posts on issues that people may not be aware of that are going on around the world. As an amateur author, she is working on a book of philosophical fiction on grief and loss, which she aspires to publish in a year or two.
Baba has always loved law and how our society is shaped and defined by it. As she grew older, her interest intensified as to “why people become criminals and what motivates a person to drift from the “normal” trajectory and fall into a world of crime.” Besides analyzing the theory and psychological aspect of criminals, she found that the criminal justice system often does not do justice to most criminals (the majority being people of color in America). “Consequently, the desire to want to be around criminals while listening to their stories and learning from it pushed me to want to study Criminal Justice.” Baba’s compassion for these people is compelling her to consider the options of going on to law school to further her interest in law, or returning to her native Nigeria after graduating with a master’s degree to complete some of her projects there.
Baba’s outside interests are reading, writing, binge-watching shows, and cooking. “I love to cook for my family, and I often cook Nigerian cuisines. Sometimes I cook traditional food from the kanuri culture such as gualto (okro soup) or karasu (spinach soup) or karkara, and other times I stick with mainstream dishes such as jallof rice or fried rice.”
George Rico
Sociology (minoring in Chicanx Studies and Human Services)
Sophomore
Growing up with immigrant parents from Mexico and being raised in the United, George Rico felt like he did not belong here or there. He was living between two worlds and thought that he needed to detach himself from his native culture. He visited CSUF as a La Habra High School student and knew he belonged here.
Rico decided to major in Sociology; “I was always interested in society, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and culture of everyday life and how all this affects the individual. Being raised in a hostile environment where my family struggled so that I can have opportunities was not easy. However, now, as an adult, I still see those who suffer from it. I see those that feel that they cannot achieve more than just getting their hands dirty for a couple of dollars.”
Minoring in Chicanx Studies helped him to cultivate a strong sense of pride in his culture and heritage. The Chicanx community developed a strong political and cultural response to the years of social oppression and discrimination in American society that continues today. “People mistake the term Chicano and state that it’s an ethnicity. However, I see it as a political identity, and I classify myself under this political identity and am proud to say that I am Chicano.
Rico trains young boxers at the La Habra Boxing Club in the Latinx neighborhood of La Habra. The founder and owner David Martinez has opened the doors in a historically rough area of the city to at-risk youth. Having been an at-risk himself, Rico’s schooling was often uncertain. He sees teens that are just like him. He offers his story to establish a connection. “I make a difference, not only by training them on how to box but by giving them the confidence to take into life, and showing these youths that there is much more than the streets.” He does outreach with “Advance!” Which is a non-profit organization that promotes higher education, helping students in the process of applying to college at no cost.
Josselyn Marroquin
Psychology (minoring Sociology)
Junior
Josselyn Marroquin’s first language is Spanish, and at the age of five, she began to learn English. By the end of the year, she could communicate fluently. In high school, she completed four years of German to learn the basics of the German language. She plans to use her multilingual talent to interact with, understand, and expand her horizons of different cultures and languages.
Marroquin became interested in psychology after taking the AP Psychology course in high school. “I was in awe, learning how complex our brains are, which opened a box full of curiosity and fascination.” After she saw the movie Kiss the Girls in which Morgan Freeman played the role of a forensic psychologist, she knew she wanted to be a forensic psychologist.
“My interest lies in improving eyewitness identification accuracy by replicating a suspect's appearance, which is what we are doing in my legal psychology lab under the supervision of Dr. Iris Blandón-Gitlin.” Marroquins’ career goals are to obtain a PhD. in cognitive psychology and eventually work towards becoming an eyewitness expert.
Outside of campus, Marroquin works with kids and adults with autism by being a Behavioral Respite Care Provider. She enjoys reading, whether the book is on history, geography, sociology, philosophy, fiction, horror, psychology, self-help books, auto/biographies, etc.
