My College Experience : My Teenage Life

The month after graduating from high school I watched six seasons of the CBS show “Survivor”. When my dad insisted I socialize with my friends, I invited them over and we all watched “Survivor” together. I was obsessed. Winning the game involves a certain finesse that changed from season to season, yet the key elements remained consistent. This show offered a new perspective on how to approach and adapt to challenges.

My life has been like a dark maze. I have absolutely no idea what's around the next corner. Each path I've taken has lead me to one of two things. Something fantastic that I'll enjoy and remember or something I wished never happened that I can forget. That's why I'm scared to take the next step because I don't know what will happen to me. However a few years ago I learned to give to give each step a chance, no matter how far back that step will take me. Being a senior this year a cartoon word has been shoved in my face a hundred times a week. That word is college. Just getting into college is a challenge. Thinking about all my test scores, GPA, applications is enough to give me a migraine. If just getting into a good college is this hard, I

Throughout my high school and collegiate life, or what little I’ve had so far, I honestly haven’t done anything one could really consider notable. I spent the majority of my time over the past several year working on my own personal projects, avoiding joining clubs or getting ‘involved’. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head was the internship offer I received from AT&T this past December, which I gladly accepted. May I mention that I took the initiative to apply early and went through great lengths to receive the internship, so I was quite proud of this accomplishment. And good grades, of course.

I thought my Sophomore year at UCLA was going to be regular. I thought I was just going to pass my classes, and gear up for next year. I never thought anything different would happen, but, life is unpredictable that way.

There is something else I would like you to know about me. The University of Florida has always been my school of choice. My father is an alumnus, and my sister is now a Sophomore. I want nothing more than to join them as Gators.

As I reflect on my Sophomore year of College I am so very thankful for all the support I was given throughout this year and in my entire life. This year alone I served on the Executive Board for Spotlight, was an active member of Chapel Assistants, became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, Alpha Chapter,I am currently studying abroad in Oaxaca Mexico, and landed an internship with TheGrio in New York City upon my return! OH and did I mention that I ended the year with a 3.8.... None of this would of been possible without a village supporting...

Freshman year was by far the worst year I've ever had as a student. I had the worst overall class grades and test scores I can remember. During the final year of middle school, I had received a letter from the principal at Cherokee Trail. It was an invitation to the Pre- IB and AP course. I accepted the invitation, excited that I would finally be challenged as a student. I went into the 9th grade with Pre IB and AP classes, thinking there would be no change from the few challenging courses I took the previous year. I went into highschool confident, and carefree, seeing how I had a 4.0 GPA every semester since the 7th grade. I believed high school would be just like middle school, stress free, little homework and easy tests and classes. It's safe to say the 8th grade did a poor job of preparing me for what I was about to experience.

Freshman year of college, a time to spread one’s wings, figure out the rest of one’s life, and express oneself. One way that I was able to express myself throughout my first year of college was through writing. This semester I expressed myself in two major projects, the first project was an evaluation on Fellowship of Christian Athletes Organization and what makes it a good organization. The second project was about why colleges and universities in South Carolina should serve fresher, healthier, non-processed foods in dining halls. While writing these papers I came across my strengths and weakness as a writer and as a student.

Experiencing a year of college life has led me to many challenges and opportunities. I have been able to attend the most prestigious historically black college in the nation and I have also attended a predominantly white institution. While attending Spelman College I have gained so much knowledge, wisdom, and insight pertaining to my black culture. Due to many issues at home I had to attend an university that was predominantly white, this time period really enabled me to see the major downfall in the educational system. I felt that I was not gaining the same education I had received at Spelman because it didn’t intertwine a curriculum that discussed the issues and also the success of minorities. Being at a black university or college enabled

In my perspective, college is just the beginning of your adult life and I do not think it should be the end of your education. When I think of college, I see it as a place for the basics and where you learn everything is by trial and error in the real world. All the great people in this world did not stop learning after college. Think of the greats like Warrant Buffett who reads “between 600 and 1000 pages per day when he was beginning his investing career, and still devotes about 80% of each day to reading.” said Andrew Merle who writes about good habits for productivity, health, happiness, and success. He also says that “Bill Gates reads about 50 books per year, which breaks down to one per week”. This just goes to show that the most successful

My journey to college began around 7th grade in middle school, I would always hear instructors mention further education. There was a huge emphasis on being prepared for high school and to begin considering a career. At that point, there was also the influence of both my parents to pursue a career. My father would always tell me about his past work experience and end his statements with, “does that sound like a nice job to do?” for example, around 1989 he worked at a dairy farm. In 1992 he worked the night shift at the old Butterball factory; in the late 90’s he began construction, which is what he currently does for a living.

Whether you are a monster or a human you will find that in life there are going to obstacles that you must overcome. The life of a college freshman is no different than the life outside of college. By analyzing the main characters in the movies in Back to School (BTS) and Monsters University (MU) we can see the direct effects college has on these students’ lives. The similarities and differences of the movie BTS and MU, reveal stereotypical incoming attitudes, the reasons for attendance, and the lessons learned of closely- connected, college freshman.

Life during college and after college can be very stressful. Teenagers are emerging into young adults while college graduates are preparing for the real world. These young grown-ups are now responsible of their own health, school life, and financial condition (Civitci & Civitci, 2015). During college, most students worry about maintaining a social life while keeping grade point average up. Along with those who graduate college, struggle to find stability.

For those who attended college will say that their best years of their lives were in college, while others say otherwise. So far, my SU experience has been a blast so far, but with four years still coming ahead, there is a myriad of matters that I want to do before I graduate. As noted by Barack Obama Howard University commencement speech “Change is the effort of committed citizens who hitch their wagons to something bigger than themselves and fight for every day.” (Obama, 6), I will make use of my time for the purpose of changing the world for the better. Some of these topics that I want to do are participating in classes or majoring in another topic, traveling abroad to possibly a developing country, working at a major or a little company as an intern, finding myself and developing my people/leadership skills, and growing my skills of cooking. Hopefully, my college years will be the best moments of my life and during these times I would develop these lifelong skills for the future.

There is a great deal of difference between school life and college life. School life is a life of restrictions and control, a life in which the student has to be accountable for his daily work to his teachers and his guardian. But a college student, of the other hand, enjoys much greater freedom from control and supervision; he is, to a very large extent, the master of his own destiny. It lies with him to make it or mar it.