Bio
My name is David Mesta and I’m running to represent you as your next LeadMN Treasurer
I currently attend South Central College in Faribault. I was born and raised in Faribault, MN. I graduated high school back in 2018. I’m active in my community by participating in community service projects like ditch clean up and doing leaf clean up for veterans.
I joined my student senate in my first semester as their elected Treasurer and through senate joined LeadMN as a Platform Committee member. I became a better advocate for students rights and I want to continue my work to better represent students who aren’t able to speak for themselves about the issues they face attending college.
1. What degree or certificate program are you seeking?
I’m currently getting my associates of arts degree and planning on transferring to a 4 year university to double major either in a social science or criminal justice degree.
2. What are your future career plans?
I’m still looking at my options for the career path I want to pursue, the first option is going into a criminal justice field. The other is advocacy and policy work and potentially being in office. My main focus is helping others as I see the most fulfillment in brightening somebody’s day.
3. Please describe your previous student government or professional experience, and how it has prepared you for this position.
I have been the Treasurer of over 4 clubs/organizations, I was elected Treasurer of my student senate and by proxy Treasurer of the Campus Activity’s Board in my first year at South Central College. I co-founded the SCC - Faribault Rotaract Club as the Treasurer and currently hold the position of Vice President of my Rotaract club. I’m also the Treasurer of the SCC - Faribault InterVarsity Club. In each of these clubs I have been in involved in helping and creating the budget for the next academic year, while maintaining our current budget for the fiscal year.
I have been involved in LeadMN as the Metro South Platform Committee Alt and Steering Committee Vice-Chair where I have worked on policy changes on the platform documents, working bylaws, and the legislative agenda. I also joined the Diversity Committee focusing on how to improve college students of diverse backgrounds to better succeed in college.
Being a part of all these clubs/organizations and committees have helped me to be better prepared for this position to represent all community and technical colleges students.
4. Why are you running for this position?
I am running for Treasurer because I have the best skill set suited for the this position. I want to be the voice of students who can’t speak for themselves. I want to help students struggling in college by decreasing the barriers they face. As Treasurer I will make sure to fight for issues that students face and show where the money is going.
5. What challenges do you see facing Minnesota's community and technical college students?
Students face a lot of challenges in college, high tuition cost and it’s only increasing another 3% next academic year and could potentially put a barrier for future students attending college. I want to push for lowering tuition cost and not having another increase in tuition.
The second issue I see students facing is mental health, time and time again I see people thinking it’s just faze that’ll go away but it’s not students have to juggle school, work, social life, and family which can take a toll. Next year will be a budget year at the capitol and I want to focus on getting mental health on the 2021 legislative agenda in getting more resources in community and technical colleges that lack the resources to support college students with their mental health.
The third issue I see facing students Is transfer, I want to improve the transfer process for current and future students so when they go to their next school they won’t retake the same courses and take longer getting their degree.
These are not the only issues I see students facing but are the ones I want to focus on during the next academic school year as I want to lessened the barriers they face getting their degrees.
I want to create a better tomorrow for current and future students and be the voice for students.