Life is full of second chances and sometimes the first major chosen gets changed but college can provide the opportunity to start over.

Geology major Eric Palma, 21, worked for the Special Resource Center as a note taker for students with learning disabilities for over a year and a half.

“If the student is deaf, I would take notes more about what the professor is saying rather than what’s on the board,” Palma said.

Working this job is rewarding Palma said.

“I like helping students with disabilities although most of them are pretty self-sufficient but I just give them that little extra push to be able study as well as a person in a normal environment,” Palma said.

Palma makes an effort to make things easier for the students who may also go up to him personally to offer suggestions on how to make things easier.

“He’s a very friendly, outgoing guy,” one of his coworkers and friend, Ronnie Samayoa, 29, radio technology major said.

Samayoa said Palma is kind, patient, and willing to have open conversation with students he helped.

Palma is planning on a future career in geology but this wasn’t always the case, as things changed when he first took an oceanography class.

“I needed it for the requirements, but I found out that I really liked it a lot, and I was doing better in that class than I was in my psychology classes,” Palma said.

Palma is planning to transfer to either Cal State Long Beach, UCLA, or maybe USC where he wants a degree in science relating to geology.

“It’s taken me a little longer to transfer and everything, but that’s okay with me because I like learning new stuff and being able to retain the information I learn,” Palma said.

Palma also loves the traveling aspect of geology and his outgoing and friendly personality doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Eric was always laughing and super sassy,” Arissa Dodson, 21, said. “He truly loved his friends and is super passionate about the things he enjoys.”