Students Win iPods Through The School

As technology changes with time, so do items like electronics. Over 20 years ago Sony was the first corporation to introduce a personal music player. It was called a Walkman. Since then, these personal music players have undergone many improvements and changes.
Now the big craze is the many MP3 players available for purchase at any electronics store. They come in various types in different shapes and with different memory sizes.
MP3s are music files that have undergone compression to reduce their file size to about half their normal size. In this way more music can be saved to the memory of the MP3 player.
Apple Computer Company, not to be outdone, has made its own MP3 player. They call it an iPOD.
Three lucky Santa Monica College students now own iPODs thanks to the Welcome Center. Jeremy Tu, Sarah Perry, and Liza Davis are the three students and Tu said, "It felt great."
These three students were part of a group of 2,000 students who made a decision to respond to a survey from the Welcome Center on campus.
This survey asked several questions and among them was what they thought of their services and how the center helped them.
Jeff Gordon, a counselor at the Welcome Center, contacted each of the lucky winners that were selected on Monday and on Thursday they were awarded the prizes.
At the school's Information and Technology Center the information students provided on the surveys was recorded.
Then, at the same place, the three winners and three alternatives were chosen by random selection.
"This is the first time I have every won anything in my life," Davis said.
On Thursday at the ceremony each of the students were able to meet a vice president of Santa Monica College. Along with the iPODs each student got a certificate to commemorate their status as winners.
"It was really cool to win it," Perry said. "It was cool to meet the VP and that he took time out of his day to sign the certificate."
Early in the semester the workers at the center discussed what prize to award. The iPODs were chosen because they're very popular right now and everyone would like to have one.
The money for the iPODS came from a collaboration of the Associated Students and the Center. A.S. agreed with the center that it would be important to collect the data from the students and thus purchase the iPODs to get the students to fill out the survey.
This was a first for the center. Since the data collected is important to the center they expect to have more surveys like this in the future. The remaining iPODs that the school has left will be handed out during a first-time-freshman symposium in the future.
"The Welcome Center is actually designed as a one stop center," said Gordon, who spoke about the center experience. "We make what use to be a four day experience a one stop shop ­- a one-day experience - and we want people out of here in a timely matter."