“I could’ve spent an hour doing calculus, but this was way more important,” Christian Vargas, biochemistry major, said about a Chicanos Latinos for Community Medicine workshop that was held on Thursday, Nov. 19 in room CE-3.

A total of seven people were in attendance at this workshop with Vargas being one of them.

“I got to meet someone who is going to help me out with getting into mentoring the underserved community, which is really important when applying to med school,” Vargas said.

The workshop’s guest speaker was Michelle Crespo, member of the Latino Medical Student Association and University California Irvine alumna, who did not give a lecture on how to get into medical school, but instead gave a question and answer forum for the students in attendance.

She answered various questions ranging form how to get into medical school to how difficult it is for a Latino to work in the field.

“Since I’ve gone through the process and have done a lot of mentorships, I’ve been able to address a lot of their questions,” Crespo said.

Even thought the turn out was low, Chicanos Latinos for Community Medicine Vice President Patrick Valdenor preferred the small group.

Valdenor said, “Honestly, it was pretty expected. I didn’t expect like a big turn out of people and honestly in my opinion I like smaller groups because they’re more focused. Like you can really get one on one with the speaker.”

He added that Crespo was informative and that she managed to answer all of the questions that he had and what the audience in attendance had.

Crespo, expressed that she enjoyed the forum.

“I enjoyed it, I like working with students from any level even elementary students [and] on. I felt like they asked really good questions and we were able to discuss some issues… I thought it was really good,” she said.