My College Experience : The Meaning Of Coming To College

Fear and anxiety plagued my mind during this transition, however my wife and daughter kept my mind at ease. The information and instruction that was provided from the Professors at Durham Tech galvanized something deep within me. I began to strive for goals that I thought were unattainable as a naïve adolescent. Instructors encouraged me to work hard and to be persistent when it came to the immense obstacles of my course work such as giving a presentation at an honors symposium as an honors student. After countless years of self doubt and negative feelings towards education as a whole, for the first time in my life, I felt like college was an option for

During their highschool years, students often look forward to college. Not necessarily as a step towards a career, but as an experience. Over the years, the media sells teenagers the idea of the ‘’college experience’’. They promote it through movies, tv shows and ads. It’s made out to be this amazing transcendental and essential part of life. Miss out on it, and you’ll have missed out on your youth. It’s not only media though, older relatives and peers, influenced by the media, further influence teens. They talk of their own cool college stories and how much fun it’ll be once you’re there. Is your main reason for going to college to live this experience? Then let’s see if it’s worth it.

Seriously what am I doing in college? A month ago I would've said, I have no idea. College was something I absolutely dreaded. I’ve always hated school, I really never tried, so college was just something I pushed off. I honestly had no drive or motivation to attend, maybe because I had and still currently have no idea what I want to do.

When I walk around the University of Georgia campus, I feel that I have found home. In such a short time UGA has impacted my mindset and goals. UGA is a place I feel inspired to grow, learn and build relationships. A year ago if you would have told me I would find a place that feels more at home than anywhere I’ve lived, I would not have believed you. The past year of my life before getting accepted into UGA was one of the most difficult years of my life. I had left some toxic relationships, experienced health scares and was lost in where I wanted to go for school. I applied to several Universities, received acceptance letters, but none of the acceptance letters made me excited. UGA was the last application I was waiting to hear back from

The College Board is a non-profit organization composed of more than 5,900 schools, colleges, universities and other educational programs. College Board provides widely-known resources, tools and services to students, parents, and colleges on topics such as college prep, admissions, and financial aid. How College Shapes Lives is based off information found in the report, Education Pays 2013: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society. This report is an in-depth database describing the difference in earnings, lifestyles, and behavior patterns that correlate to a person’s higher education level. How College Shapes Lives further examines how an individual can benefit from higher education and how society as a whole benefits from it. How College Shapes Lives was written by Sandy Baum, Charles Kurose and Jennifer Ma.

Change has always been a part of my life. One of the biggest changes happened when I was 15 years old. I started to think of college in my last years of middle school. Until then College was someone else’s reality. Not many people from my community attended college. They felt that their futures were supposed to be spent being a clerk or fisherman. The change happened on a trip to visit mainland college towns, explore possibilities beyond the islands cultural landscape

This was the beginning of the next part of my life. I began to question how I would make new friends after being around the same people for a majority of my life. At the time, I felt ill-prepared for this new chapter in my life, but I was confident in my ability to succeed. Days before I ventured into college, I looked at the photo I took of my diploma, and reminisced about the memories throughout my high school

In eighth grade, I noticed a distinct pattern with every person I talked to about college. There was always excitement in their voices about having freedom and independence, but ironically, no one wanted to go very far to experience that freedom. Everyone I talked to seemed to want to stay close to home. Although many people told me that I would get homesick if I went to school far away, I always had my heart set on getting out of Massachusetts. This notion of escaping my “humdrum” state emerged very young, when I had just seen Beauty and the Beast. A character in the movie says, “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell.” I remember hearing that line, and thinking, “Yes! That’s exactly how I feel.” Immediately, I knew I too wanted

Before arriving on the campus of the University of Indianapolis, several people in my immediate family and I ended our summer with a vacation that will forever be remembered. We traveled to the Grand Canyon where we hiked 9 miles down, along with hiking 9 miles back up. At this time I had several different feelings pulling me in several directions in the anticipation of college: fear, confusion, and excitement. However, when I process my first semester one thing remains bouncing in my head, my family vacation prior to the start of the 2014 school year. College is much like the hike from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the top. The higher I climb, the higher the stakes. As I continue to ascend the narrow, rocky, dirt path, the path gets

College is a life changing experience for students. College is a new environment for most students and comes with lots of challenges. Things such as the increased difficulty of academic work and not being around the same social groups as a student was before college can make the transition very difficult. One of the best things a student can do to help with this transition is to live in a campus residence hall. Students should live in dorms because of the community that this creates. Students will gain many beneficial social interactions, will be able to better complete academic work, and will ease the adjustment to college life.

As I prepare to go to college, especially such a large and far away one as Clemson, and as the first person in my immediate family to do so, there are many big challenges that await me there. Of all the major challenges that come to mind, the biggest and most intimidating one I can think of is leaving behind all my friends and family, my support group, and leaving my small hometown, my job and everything else I’ve come to know and moving up to a new bigger town with new people, new places, and new experiences and starting all of that over. So, Before I begin to explain how I plan to take on such an enormous task, I first want to explain why I feel it will be a bigger challenge to me personally than most people.

While attending a new school provided a challenge both socially and academically, the two combined at once made me question my own ability to handle so much change in such short period of time. In my first semester, however, I found that this new environment pushed me in ways necessary for personal growth. While I continued to challenge myself academically, enrolled in two college courses and one AP class, I also took the initiative to open a

"Tomorrow is the first day of what I will become." I wrote this in my diary the night before my first day of college. I was anxious as I imagined the stereotypical college room: intellectual students, in-depth discussions about neat stuff, and of course, a casual professor sporting the tweed jacket with leather elbows. I was also ill as I foresaw myself drowning in a murky pool of reading assignments and finals, hearing a deep, depressing voice ask "What can you do with your life?" Since then, I've settled comfortably into the college "scene" and have treated myself to the myth that I'll hear my calling someday, and that my future will introduce itself to me with a hardy handshake. I can't completely rid my

My college story did not begin 12 minutes away from home. My story started off as pursuing my dream of traveling, even if it was only three hours from home. I spent one semester, four months, in which I thought was my dream. I am independent, I am spontaneous and I am adventurous, or so I thought. Living my “dream” was the only way I found out that I was small and shy. I was an outcast-- how terrifying.

A great life does not have a destination, but it is a great journey filled with twists and turns. In a multitude of short stories and articles such as; “Ithaka” by C.P. Cavafy, “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty, and a New Times article titled, “College Is a Journey, Not a Destination” an important theme regarding the importance of a journey versus its destination is debated. However, these sources all share a similarity. In both the stories and articles the author portrays the characters either enjoying or rushing through the journey to reach a disappointing destination. During the journey, it is apparent that the characters experience a lot of valuable moments and times of joy during their journey without having to worry about the destination.