College Admissions Essay: It's The Railroad Life For Me

If you asked my parents, my first love was to be a “Choo-choo” train. My parents told me the story that each year on my birthday they would ask me, “What would you like to be when you grow up?” I would answer without hesitation, “A Choo-Choo train!” The Little Engine That Could was my favorite book before bedtime. I remember how excited it made me feel when “The Little Train” made it over the mountain. It wasn’t until discussing my upcoming Senior year and applying to Medical School, I realized, my parents had planted a seed of optimism and hard work, when they decided to read me The Little Engine That Could book at bedtime growing up.

For some students, the question of what to do after high school may be a burden to even contemplate as it approaches quicker and quicker. The pressure to continue another four (or more) years of education after high school can be overwhelming considering twelve years of schooling has already been completed; why go right back to school again? When’s break time? Some people are simply just not ready for college and they know it, or at least until after they have had a long break or have had some time to recollect themselves. Technically speaking college isn’t for everyone, nor is it necessarily needed for a career. Luckily today, there are many other options that potential career seeking beings can get a head start on such as community colleges and trade/vocational schools. These alternatives to a four year college are considered to be a good start on a job (and maybe even a career). The best benefits of these alternatives involve the cost of attending, the student environment, and the degrees offered.

When I graduated high school I had no idea what I wanted to do, all I knew is I was done with public school and could live my life as what I thought an adult was. My father and most of my family believed it was important for me to go to college, and get a kick start with my life. Though they weren’t wrong, I had no idea what I wanted to do and no discipline to do my studies to the full extent of my abilities.

All throughout school, students are ask what we want to be when we grow up. Many of us know or have a pretty good idea, but others have no clue what they want to pursue as a career in life, whether it be furthering their education at a university or attending a technical school. There are other students that plan to start work right out of high school. Either way we all have a plan, and the purpose of this paper is to inform you of mine. I personally struggle in making big decisions like deciding what to do with my life, but then I realized I have been asking myself the wrong questions. Instead of asking what I want to be when I grow up, I asked myself what do I want out of life? what are some of my goals that I wish to achieve? This led

     As we begin to grow up and come to the end of our high school career we must start to begin to start thinking about what type of career we want to be in.     It is very important that a person picks the right type of career for them. Otherwise you will be unhappy with what you are doing and will not enjoy it at all. I am not entirely sure what I want my career to be but I have a pretty good idea as to what type of job it will be. I would like to go into the field of a physical therapist and sports medicine, I fell I will enjoy this more than any other type of career just because I already have a lot of interest in it.

Graduating from high school is a milestone that forces one to make major life decisions. Whether you are ready or not to make those decisions is irrelevant; choices must be made and and steps must be taken in a new direction. In his article, “Not Going to College is a Viable Option,” former Superintendent Lawrence Schlack states, “high school doesn’t always prepare students to answer these important questions” (13). Schlack argues that too many students are told that college is their only option and they are made to feel failures if they don’t want to attend college. I am thankful for Schlack’s article because it validated my choice not to attend college right after high school. I plan to pursue a career as a diesel mechanic. My goal is to

“As the number of drivers increases, more and more people die at railroad crossings. In a car-train collision, the odds that those in the car will live are not very good,” stated in the Railroad crossing article in the NUES Driver’s Ed Online Course. There are many precautions that can be taken to reduce the amount of deaths occurring in railroad crossings. While signs and gates indicate a train coming across, there are many things we can do as pedestrians as well. First off, we should always follow and be aware of the advanced warning signs and do as instructed. There are even markings on the pavement as well. Never go around the gates or over the curbing that stops you from crossing the tracks. It is against the law to cross the tracks when

In Mike Rose’s I JUST WANT TO BE AVERAGE,, he describes his personal experience with high school. How the system failed him. How his teachers failed him and the other students, and how just one teacher changed his life.

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I had finally found a way to appease the never ending question: Are you thinking about college, and what do you want to do afterward? I had jokingly answered that I would major in English in order to go into the publishing business so I could read free books. To them, it was a satisfying answer. That I was not one of the many high schoolers who had absolutely no clue what they were going to do with their life.

I was a very quiet person, but social in high school. Unfortunately since school was such a challenge for me I always did not take school serious. I had to work hard for all my grades, always being a C student. Since for 12 years I had to work extra hard in school, I was ready for school to be over. I did not have the opportunity to go to college, so I started working and married my high school sweetheart.

I woke up and, I got out of bed. I was getting prepared to be the new conductor of a train. But, not just any train, the mental train. This is the hardest of them all. One mistake, and the train will crash. If the train crashes, so will the passengers. These passengers contain positive vibes, which keeps it going. Lose them well, the train will crash. If I was good today, I would keep the strong positive coal to power the train. If I was bad, I lost the coal and I was tossing money into the fire. Not only would it stop the train, but it would waste the money of my passengers and provide the negative energy that would make the train wreck in a matter of seconds. Days like these are the hardest in the mental train. Why, because mixed emotions. I wanted to gain passengers while making friends, and lose passengers by doing it at the wrong time, and hiding under the bed like the students were monsters. In other words, I was very excited, and very scared. I did not know if they would make fun of me or not. If they made fun of me for any reason in particular, that would make me lose passengers and power the train with their wasted time and money, which makes the train crash. I had no idea if I should take the two turns that lead to easy terrain, and broken bridges, or should I go

I personally believe that I didn’t take high school serious enough. I don’t believe that I worked hard enough in school. In high school, it took the end of my junior year to realize that I was being

Highschool is considered a common part of life that is often defined as the stage where you "Find" yourself. Well, let's just say I found out more about myself than I initially expected to. Hence the "Low" in Highschool, Low Expectations. Low expectations were exactly what I had going into highschool. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that highschool is nothing like "Highschool Musical." Growing up in a poverty stricken neighborhood only made matters worse. My county had always been thrown under the bus when it came to academics. Before I came to North Carolina Central University, a teacher of mine informed me that it would be beneficial for me to take remedial classes due to to my

When I was 12 years old, people would always ask me what I wanted to be when I grow up and my answer was always the same; I want to be a professional football player. I was convinced at that age that was what I wanted to be so I trained extremely hard to make that dream come true. I ran extra after practice and worked on speed and agility drills at home to hone my skills. However, when I entered high school, my dream had changed. I no longer enjoyed football and I worried about what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I have always been fascinated with technology and have been curious as to how they function so in my sophomore year of high school, I finally decided that I wanted to be a computer engineer and this time, I will do whatever it takes to make this dream come true.

It’s almost expected for graduating high schoolers to go to college. Our local college has multiple campuses with a good amount of career choices to choose from, but, for some,