Hello and welcome!
My name is Steven Loera and I have lived my entire life in California. I’m the oldest of three boys. Along with that, the family has three pets: ‘Kitty’ our cat, ‘Puppy’ our dog and the newest member, our 12 week old Siberian Husky: Cuco. Cuco was the latest addition to the family as a retirement gift for my dad; we figured he’d keep dad busy! As I am embarking on this next chapter in my life, as are my parents. My dad, 53, and my mom, 50, have recently retired. In a way, me going back to school and working will help with this transition as I suspect it will take some time for ALL of us to adjust to seeing each other SO often! Anyway, I come from an extremely large family, more than 100 people! I have 44 FIRST cousins. Unfortunately, we recently lost our grandpa, but he left embedded in the family a strong love and devotion for one another and a strong work ethic. We work to make him proud every day. Our grandpa was our family rock. He loved to sing, loved to compose music and loved to film us. When he passed, my aunts/uncles came across hundreds of home videos dating as far back as the early 70’s, it was an incredible treasure. My grandpa helped my parents shape me into the person I am today. He was an incredible person who worked everyday to serve and love his family. It’s an understatement to say he will be sorely missed. 
After graduating from Baldwin Park High, I decided on UC Riverside because being I had received NO financial aid, I didn’t want to be too much of a burden on my parents. The institution was great, I loved my classes/teachers. My only trepidation with having gone to UC Riverside was that because school was so far, and I was living in West Covina, I never really got the “college experience.” Even for simple things like studying in groups. There’d be times where I couldn’t stay because of work, or couldn’t come to campus because it wasn’t worth it to drive an hour out to study with a group of people. In any case, I graduated with honors with a degree in Political Science/Administrative studies, along with a minor in Spanish.
Once graduated, I decided I’d travel a bit before “settling down.” I had the awesome opportunity to travel to Europe, different parts of Mexico and across many parts of the USA. My experiences in traveling were truly life changing; I met some fantastic people and loved every minute of being in other peoples cultures. I don’t see going on vacation as simply laying by the pool. I like to experience how people live in different parts of the world; even the basics: “What do people in country ZYX eat for breakfast?”
Now that I’ve been semi cured of the travel bug (I don’t think one is ever cured of that), I took a lot of time in considering where I wanted to attend for my credential/masters. At the top of my priority list was location to home and a small school environment. Being at UCR, while great, didn’t exactly give me that personal touch. I mean, when there were 350 students in a class, it made me feel like my education was being “mass produced,” just chugging along. Once I spoke to my AVID high school teacher, who has been a tremendous fountain of information regarding upper education, he told me “You want to get into education? La Verne, no question about it!” When I complained about tuition being a little steep, he rebutted by pointing out that I’d have no problem spending money for a BMW over a Toyota, why should my education be any different? He was right. With that said, I decided La Verne was my best fit.
Since 11th grade, I’ve worked at the Sears in West Covina. Along the way, I’ve moved up in departments, ending in appliances. I decided to not go into management because I knew I did not want to stay in retail and felt that doing so would “lock me in.” It’s definitely been a learning experience working customer service for so long, I feel I’ve been able to practice dealing with a multitude of personalities and have been able to overcome them!
stevenloera 