Personal Narrative Essay

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.

College is a great place to grow as a person, but you have to plan out what you will do in order to have the greatest experience possible. Without having a plan you will not be able to go forward with great confidence that you have made all of the right choices in college. This means you should not party and make bad decisions that will ruin your chances at making a great career out of your time and money that is going in for your education. I believe that you should not be part of the crowd that is only at school to party and to has fun, I believe that you should join a group that will help with your education and that you can still have a good time with. You should also have great relationships with your professors in order for you to go to them and talk about problems or issues that you are having with the classes you are taking and maybe they can give you advice on how you could improve in the class that you are struggling in, or maybe they can just be a person to talk to. Professors are great tools for you to use to start doing the best you can possibly do with the help and guidance that only professors can give.

Let me just make one thing clear, the College process is not easy, and by not easy I mean nearly impossible. Thousands of students paying thousands of dollars expected to just suddenly know how to become an adult and know what they want to do for the rest of their life. No thank you. But sooner or later this was going to be my reality. So I braced myself. Not know what discoveries would lie before me, I headed off to visit LMU’s campus.

Last weekend, as my final task in this 27-day journal reflection, my mother had given me on the hardest task that surprising made me rethink everything I've come to known. She had asked me to send in my university applications. At first, when she told me that she wanted to get it done before Monday, I thought I was going to need another task to write about in my reflection on Wednesday, I already knew what programs I want to go into. I had no doubts about what I wanted to do, what schools offered the best program, where I live on campus, how much everything cost... I had done all my research since grade 11. I was physically ready to submit my applications. But I wasn't prepared psychologically and emotionally. Not even close. As I sat there looking at my laptop screen, I questioned everything that I thought I knew and I had let my insecurities come to surface to make my decisions. I end up switching back and forward between doing nursing and not becoming an OBGYN but do prenatal/neonatal nursing or sticking with doing health science and probably move out of Canada to go to medical school (a lot easier overseas than here). I even thought about changing majors completely and go into women studies and not pursue a career in science at all. I had seemed to lose all self-confidence that had for two years, in a matter of ten minutes. I rationing to do is to talk to others who are in university right now-- which I did. I ending up calling my aunt, my two brothers, my uncle, my

People say once you graduate college to prepare yourself for the real world ahead of you. Going to college was the real world I was eager to experience after high school. The ability to be more independent and give the courage I already have to others surrounded around me. Attending Montclair State University has helped me recognize both my strengths and weaknesses throughout my college experience. Without those setbacks, I wouldn’t have been able to learn different approaches in order to be successful. These top ten lessons focused on preparation skills, communication, and passion.

I have always been a shy person since I was a little kid. I was always nervous to go do things with people or to make a mistake in front of people. I remember in the 7th grade, the teacher called on me, and I had been paying attention but I got the question confused so I said something that was wrong. I felt the whole class just stare at me and laugh. Ever since then I have always struggled with self confidence. I lacked self confidence in just about everything, like what clothes to wear, what to say to people, talking in front of a class, etc.

My first year of college I encountered an abundance of struggle. When signing up for classes I chose poorly the course load I could manage. I took many challenging courses all in one short span of time. I was not accustomed to the differences of college and high school. I started out anxious but sure I would succeed. Shortly after starting, I began to fall behind due to challenging course work and inexperience with the structure of college classes. I was unsure of where to turn for help and I felt very helpless. I believe I started to have anxiety in high school but with a strong support group I was able to flourish and had never needed to seek a mental health professional. As I started to do poorly my anxiety came to a peak. I would bawl daily unsure of where to turn. I had panic attacks every time I did a homework assignment. My mind would tell me if I get this question wrong I would get another wrong, I would do bad on the assignment, I would fail the class, then all the hard work I put in to come to WSU would be for nothing, I’d never get a career, and I’d never be able to support my son. I studied extremely hard for exams and when I got to the exam room would forget everything. I would often start to black out from the stress. I did so very terribly my first year and was given another shot my second year. I sought out a mental health professional and was diagnosed and given ways to cope with my anxiety. I was in better contact with my advisor and began to attend

A week and a half before Thanksgiving break I found myself overwhelmed in an instant after learning the sheer amount of events and work that would come up. Leading to November sixteenth and seventeenth, the deadline for all my assignments, I was given my first college research paper to due, an important essay for my connections class, a midterm for my calculus two class, and two quizzes and a test for my Japanese class, all due in the span of those two days. I additionally had individual issues around then that affected me further, they include the stress of registration, roommate issues and the knowledge that my mom would not be home for Thanksgiving due to her visiting my grandma to stay with her through the sickness. At that moment I felt a multitude of emotions, which prompt my mental breakdowns and crying consistently. I felt insufficient and futile, how would I complete this work on time and with good marks?

College is all of what you make it. You meet many new people, and see many faces. You will start new friendships, and possibly end some that you’ve had for a while; just know that it’s okay when it happens. Friends come and go, especially in this big transition. That’s what the college experience is, one big transition. Whether you are moving to a new city/state or even just moving down the street, college is a whole new chapter. It does pay off to be social in college, but you still need to have that balance of social and academics.

College never really intimidated me. I always got decent enough grades, had friends, and participated in sports during my High School years. Nothing really worthy of a scholarship by any means, and my family was unfortunately not in the financial situation to send me to an out of state school. They always did everything they could for me, So my first choice (in state) was University of Denver. However, as my family lived pretty far in Boulder to be exact, I moved into the dorms on campus. That's one of the worst decisions i’ve ever come to.

What are the first few adjectives that come to your mind when you think of college? It is part of American culture to make college look like the best years of a person’s life. Television, movies, and even music does a fantastic job glorifying the college experience. Often times, the high stress is never portrayed. Take my school’s statistics on stress for example, 47.9% of MTSU students reported feeling their stress levels were greater than average over the 12 months prior to completing the survey, and 27.3% of MTSU students reported their academics were negatively impacted because of stress (MTSU, 2013). With that being said, “Could writing be an outlet for students to alleviate college stress?”

I am not your typical college applicant. I was born in Myanmar (Burmar). I came to the United States when I was only 13 years old. I was clueless when I had arrived in America. I didn’t fully understand America’s education process. It was a complete drastic change from where I had came from. I was placed in a sixth grade class, but I was supposed to enter the eighth grade. It was something I had to get used to, because I didn’t speak english and everything was completely new. It was scary because I didn’t know anybody except my family.

I had a lot of experiences in almost four months in USA. Be in college for the first time in my life is one of the most awesome for me. I’ve graduated in Brazil last year, and I was really excited to go to the college for the first time in my life, and for my surprise wouldn’t be in Brazil, but in USA. This made me feel a lot of feelings. I was nervous, excited, determined, etc.

From early on, school has been a challenge for me. I am one of the youngest students in my class, which meant that I always struggled to keeping up with maturity, which meant I had a hard time being prepared for things. However, given that this was my situation, I worked really hard to prove to myself, and to others that I was not going to fall behind just because of the age difference and maturity difference between my classmates and myself. Although school is difficult, I know I have to continue to pursue a higher education because it is important for me to have a successful and happy future. I have learned that I really need to work hard and not give up even when I am faced with obstacles. I do this by challenging myself and having my goals set out ahead of me so I have something to work towards.

College, from what I heard from people say, is a time that you would not forget. From coming from such a far away place I did not really know what to expect. I was expecting some changes, but not the changes that I experienced over the past semester. I have changed as a person with greater openness of others’ ideas and topics. I have changed with more independent from my parents and I have changed with more knowing of determining who I want to be, and I have changed by being more understanding that a person has to ask questions or otherwise, when in doubt people will not communicate with you. This past semester has been a time of self growth, which in turn has caused me to be a much different person that I had started out with.