New College and Career Counselor opens doors for all students

By Anya Hendricks, Managing Editor

Erica Chino is the new College and Career Counselor at El Camino. As a career counselor her new role at EC is to help students apply for college, sign up for SAT, apply for financial aid ,and help students look for a job. 

She was born in Mexico, came here when she was five and has lived in California ever since. 

She went to a community college for two years and then transferred to San Luis State, where she studied child and adolescent development. 

Chino interned at CSU, Bakersfield before deciding to become a counselor. She has previously worked at the University of California, Monterey Bay.

She is continuing her education at Concordia, part of the University of Irvine, where she is working on her master’s degree. 

Recently college fairs have been visiting EC and some students have been being called out of class to the college and career counselors room to sign up to visit a college. 

“My goal is to bring different types of colleges, whether it’s a CSU, community college, or out of state. It’s whatever interests [the students]”. 

She works with the counseling office to get colleges that might interest students to come to the school. 

The students who have been called out of class are the college-bound who are A-G eligible (high school requirements to get into college). Chino plans to talk to all the students throughout the year, no matter what they plan to do with their future. 

She started with students A-G eligible because CSU college applications due soon and she wants to help students who are likely to go to a CSU college with those applications. 

“My main focus right now is just seniors for the fall semester-then for spring my focus would be juniors and sophomores—I want to make sure we help the sophomores so they are ready for next year,” said Chino. 

She recently received new job applications from businesses such as Trader Joe’s. Her room, room 25, is open before school and at lunch, anyone can come into her room and see information that is posted around her room such as job applications and college visit information. Any student who wants to talk about their future after high school can go and talk to Ms. Chino.