Personal Narrative: The College Work Load
My primary goal for attending college is to be financially fit and also use the knowledge I’ve gained to help underprivileged youth achieve their goals. I come from a poor background where I have struggled to make ends meet. I didn’t receive any scholarships to attend college after high school so I skipped it. The cost of college is a burden that I couldn’t have taken. I used the motivation of when I took time away from school surrounded by people in situations I never wanted to be in.
Returning to college has been an exciting and terrifying decision for me. My husband has encouraged me for 1-2 years, but my fear of failure overwhelmed me and kept me from pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to pursue. I’m now on this journey and ready for whatever it is that God has planned for me. I have worked hard encouraged my three kids as they transitioned their way through elementary school through middle school and on to high school and graduation.
In my freshman year, I made a choice to relinquish some of my social life and replace that time giving back to my community. I joined a non-profit organization called the Volunteer Corp. We spent our time at food banks, park clean-ups, and even hosting local events. This experience left a lasting impression on me in many ways; however, one experience changed my perspective on life and serve as a constant reminder of how the smallest contribution to others can be the most powerful. St. Joseph University, in Philadelphia, held an event called Hand in Hand. It was an event dedicated to raising awareness for people with physical and/or developmental disabilities.
My whole life long, I have been trying to find a place where I can truly fit in. I have also been worried about what I would do when I grew up. I was torn between my passion for horses and my passion for performing. There was no way I could give up one for the other, so I searched the net for Christian colleges that had majors in both equine studies and vocal performance and there it appeared: Asbury University. It was manna from Heaven.
I graduated back in 2013 from a pretty decent school district. During high school I wasn’t an A student or a B student, I just did what I needed in order to pass. Once I got to my junior of high school I started taking things more seriously, I started making A’s and B’s. Once my senior year started the pressure was on. Everyone asking “what college are you thinking about attending?”
After a pause of almost 25 years, I am returning to the college classroom and to say that there are mixed emotions would be an understatement. Sure, I’m excited to start but also a bit fearful if I’m being honest. I’ve worked for large and international companies during this time but getting back to college has always been a goal of mine. No time like the present I guess!
Getting involved means being apart of something more, having the chance to met different people, helping out the community, but its also means learning more about who you are as a person. Starting off at Washburn University I plan to get involved right away, in activities or clubs that would help my academically and socially like the Hispanic club , Freethinkers and French club. I will set goals for myself and achieve them, some small some big. One goal I am pursuing right now is learning french and Portuguese, i plan on going to Brazil next year. School goals, are turning in my work on time, stay focused on any task that is given to me, making sure I understand what i need to do and how to do it.
The freshman myth has really opened my eyes, after all I myself am a freshman in college straight out of high school. The fact that 18 million students in a single year apply for college and 34% of those students drop or flunk out of college is a little scary. I have big goals for life I want to be either a Jag for the Army or a Prosecuting Attorney. The freshman myth is what I was thinking my senior year; piece of cake, easy, not going to have to work as hard as I have the last few years of my life. I learned quick that senior year is a lot more stressful then it sounds.
Entering Rutgers University, I thought my most difficult challenges were going to be reading, writing, and public speaking. However, reflecting on my experience leading up to my graduation, the challenge that comes to mind most frequently, is time management. Learning how effectively prioritize, manage, and balance a schedule comprised of countless assignments, tasks, appointments, familial responsibilities, classes, internships, personal life, and relationships can be intimidating and challenging for those lacking strong organizational skills.
When my older sister went off to college, I had never seen a more driven, mature and intelligent 18 year old look so terrified and reluctant to leave her home just a few states away. Caroline had spent the majority of her high school years stressed, angry and tired, holed up in her single room acing more APs than I can count with two hands. My sister knew from the time she could read that success meant getting into an Ivy, even if the price was throwing away all human contact or not. Myself, was not so sure. I had been shaped by a front-row-seat to the 24-hour shows of a hormonal workaholic—years spent listening to crying, yelling, and disturbing silences from upstairs in Caroline’s room taught me that in order to earn a college acceptance,
I first heard of the Trailblazer Collegiate Academy during my freshman year enrollment. The idea of taking college classes at a community college while still in high school was appealing to me because my current coursework took no effort to complete and I wanted a challenge. Once I was a sophomore, I began looking into it more seriously. If I wanted to apply for the Academy, I had a short window of time to do so. After discussing it with my counselor I learned that my classes I took with the community college would factor into my GPA at the high school level.
As a first generation college student, I have the desire to not only make my parents proud of my academic achievements, but to be the first person in my family to receive a college degree. At a very young age, I was always expected to receive A’s and B’s in my school assignments, as well as my final grades. However, I was never rewarded or congratulated whenever I did receive those grades because it was already expected of me to achieve them. Hence, a time in which I have experienced failure but also felt like I let my family down was when I received a D in my Critical Thinking course I was already retaking for the second time. The first time I took Critical Thinking was during the summer in which it was an 8-week long course.
About me: I am a go-getter. I push myself to the limit in everything I do, be it sports, academics, or life in general. Every year of high school I have taken the hardest schedule possible, only honors or AP classes, and I have done well. My cumulative weighted GPA has remained above a 4.0 every year due to my strength of schedule and my dedication to excellence. While taking all of these difficult classes, I have played several sports including Baseball, Basketball, and Volleyball, as well as participating in DECA and Academic Team.
The first half of this semester was swift and I can’t believe how fast it passed by. College is a whole new world for me that I had never imagined with a lot of new experiences that I hope will shift me into a better and smarter person. There are more things I can do in college that I would have never dared to do in high school and I am happy for these new freedoms. I am able to eat in class, leave class without asking and they don’t care if I pay attention or not. My high school teachers would always tell me to wait for the bell, sometimes would not let me leave and if I did not pay attention they would yell.
Overworked. That’s the closest word that I could use to describe this week. I feel like this journal is going to be about me just bickering, yet there is some stuff you might want to read about. First of all, I have been sleeping three hours this week because of upcoming midterms, quizzes, and assignments due. I am sleep deprived and mentally drained and as my second year in college I have never had my life drained out of my body like a passing shadow.
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