Elvith Santoyo is a Gale Scholar student at Carl Sandburg College and has taken advantage of the benefits the program brings.

Santoyo had already been thinking about the decision to come to CSC before being announced as a Gale Scholar, which allows her to attend two years at CSC and two years at Knox College for free, and she knew it would be the right fit for her.

“My parents would always preach to me that other bigger colleges have distractions and you want to try to avoid those distractions. Plus when you are right out of high school you aren’t always ready to make that jump into a big college so Carl Sandburg College is a good place to adapt into that transition,” said Santoyo.

Santoyo has worked hard to achieve her academic goals while at CSC enrolling in more than the minimum required classes to be a full-time student as well as working on the side. She will be graduating this summer and transferring to Knox to major in human resources. She wants to attain her master’s degree and become a human resource manager.

“I actually took the occupational search class at CSC and that class actually helped me make up my mind as to what I want to do. It helped me study my personality and what I like and I found that HR is really is me. I really recommend people to take that class,” said Santoyo.