My Personal Experience : My Journey To College

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.

The actions that are made following High School are huge and they greatly impact the future of your life. We can attend college, enlist in the military, or go straight into the workforce. We have a plethora of options after High School. Attending college is more suitable for me than going straight into the workforce.

When I was a junior in high school I wanted to go to a four year college, however I changed my mind and I decided to go to a community college because of reasons. The first was when I came from Ethiopia I felt like I got a second chance on my life. I wasn’t a bad student back there but I wasn’t a very successful student either. I was always in the middle. Because I got second chance I wanted to use it very well. I want to do big things in my life.

As I immigrated to this country at the age of five, I knew I had to opportunity to grow up in a prominent country unlike my family. Growing up was a bit difficult because I was different. Although now, I strive of the fact of being different; as a kid I suffered trying to be similar. This idea led me to transfer primary and secondary schools’ multiple times. My childhood and teenage years were unpleasant; however, I did manage to graduate in the top of my class in high school.

"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

College is about the experience. That’s what my ESL teacher, Mrs. Cruz, told me when I was a sophomore in high school. And she couldn’t be more right. While at the time it sounded to me like a salesman trying to sell me an useless product, now I understand the idea of “college is about the experience” a lot more. Now I see what that really means, and that means, at least to me, that college is a long journey of self-discovery. While learning how to program, being proficient at Math and English are crucial to my major(Computer Science), the amount of self-exploration that going to college has enabled me to achieve has been just as vital to self -growth as academics. And I intend to extend and share with others this repository of myself at Rutgers University as much as possible. Think of this repository as being an encapsulation of three sections; transparency, identity, and connections. Filling in these sections with more knowledge is the personal and career goal that I intend to achieve by obtaining a Rutgers education.

For many, college is a time of self-discovery. It is a time where many find their calling in life, their spouse, their passion, or their student debt. Some may go so far as to call it the best time of their lives. While there is potential for me to eventually look back on my time at the University of Arizona with similar fondness, for now, I have more pressing issues than finding my soulmate, like finding my next classroom along with many other stressful situations. So far in my limited college experience, the major stressors in my life are religion, academics, and social interactions; however, there are several ways I have found to manage these situations.

My college journey began in July of 2014 as I made the long trip to Eastern Oregon University. I was due to report for volleyball pre-season by August 3rd, so I decided to leave home early to get settled in. But little did I know that this chapter of my life was about to take a major turn in the right direction. After playing high-level club volleyball for most of my life, I decided to join a travel team. I would drive an hour and fifteen minutes three times a week for practice, plus tournaments on the weekends. This type of playing experience would land me a scholarship to play collegiately as I chose to commit Eastern Oregon University. Now, a lot factors went into my decision. First off, it was cheap. My mother raised my brothers and me as a single parent and money was tight. I thought that if I went to a public state school it would be better for her and I in the long run financially. Another factor was that their volleyball team was GOOD. I don’t mean decent, I mean outstanding. They were nationally ranked in the NAIA pre-season poll. How could I pass that opportunity up? Lastly, they had my major. At the time I wanted to become a high school physical education teacher and they had a decent teaching program. In my mind, I was set.

Living in an apartment complex the entirety of my childhood and adolescent life, I wanted to be seen and be considered popular by my peers. When it came to my values, my parents always imposed being truthful and genuine to others. When it came to my studies, they taught me a great deal about accountability. The internal and external influences following give more context to my academic journey throughout high school and college.

When I started the 2015 Fall semester things were going swell I was very excited to start college and to start learning.I was very much more interested in figuring out what would be the best major for me to select.Going to college was something I wanted to do because I felt like it was the best option for me to find a career and a job I would love doing.While attending classes my mom started dealing with injuries and started experiencing pain with her right knee.I soon learned that bad knees, runs in my family and she has been dealing with it for some time now.Going to school during that time wasn't hard due to the fact she was still working and able to walk around by herself.But as soon as the semester was over I started to consider going to school. I wondered if school was for me at one point and time. So I talked to my old high school guidance counselor and talked about how I need to buckle up and get on track to success.Knowing that school is very important I decided to focus completely on school and nothing else.

My pilot G-2 pen etches my name on the paper, and I realize the actual meaning of it beyond my signature on a line. I am leaving, taking all the memories and experiences I’ve had in Tampa, putting a ribbon on them, and going off on my next journey. For a young adventurous person like myself, it excites me, but all of us freshmen recognizes the nervous feeling we faced coming to college. However, humans have a natural ability of making whatever place they’re home. I had learned that in my life already, in this process I learned to listen to what was best for me. Starting as a high school senior in the swamps of Florida and ending up in a place just west of the Smoky Mountains has been quite the transformation. How did it happen?

Attending college at the university level gives many opportunities to students who carry on with the pursuance of their degree. With such pursuit, students find themselves working hard in a classroom for a subject that won’t always directly apply to what they hope to specialize in following graduation. This class, Management 306, Organizational Behavior and Diversity, is a class that is “required” and therefore, some students aren’t able to see the purpose of this class with the degree that their seeking. When looking at my degree checklist, I saw this class and didn’t have high hopes for it with my first impression. However, as time went on and my mind adjusted from a freshman mentality to a senior mentality, I realized how vital I expect this class to be. I am a part of a society that is full of diverse concepts, beliefs, practices, and people. Diversity is something though that I believe to be unaccepted in most cases, as is supported by most of today’s news channels. Apart from the majority of the society that I am a member of, I want to learn, understand, and better respect the diversity of this world.

Growing up I fondly remember not knowing where I belonged. Even to this day I still ponder on this very thing. I was casted away by my mother and father, forced to live with my abusive grandmother. Who at every chance never wasted a minute berating me for every little thing I did. In time I grew to hate her like many other things. For most of my younger years I stayed in a hot trailer, on the back skirts of civilization. We didn’t have any AC and barely any cable, we were completely off the grid. I´d work in the field with my papa. He was a tall, dark skin islander. Hailing from The Virgin Islands, his thick ,harsh accent fills my head even to this day. I remember summers filled with hard work, sweat, little play, and sugar cane. My perspective of life has always been cynical. I don't exactly remember when I lost my innocence, or if i ever did. But I ,always remember looking at the world with heated distrust. Things only got worse from there. We moved for my first day of school,so we could be closer to the school district. We moved closer to what some people would call the hood. I personally didn’t see my neighborhood as such, but that was what it was labeled. My house was fairly nice, red and cosy despite the environment being unpleasant.

During my twelve years of school, I have grown accustomed to knowing the people and businesses in my city, and they knew me. I didn’t realize it, but the comfortable environment of knowing my neighbors was limiting my emotional and social maturity. I did not have a reason to “step outside the box,” because I was in a place of comfort. As I embark on to this new college journey, I will face many challenges that will offer a fresh start, on beginning a new chapter of my life. There will be stumbling blocks towards transitioning to college life. These blocks involve meeting new people, being self-sufficient, and adapting to my new environment. Although these challenges are difficult, I know there will be many lessons learned. These lessons will only build me as an individual mentally and socially.

Before walking into campus, all I was exposed to were people from similar backgrounds as me, Latina/o individuals with similar traditions and religious believes. However, as I began my journey as a college student I realized that the people in my surrounding were not at all like me. The first couple of weeks I felt so alone and felt as though I stood out from the rest of the college students because my skin is not white, my hair is not blonde and I don’t speak the perfect English that others speak. Growing up I had access to free education and meals, a stable home where my parents are married, and although not wealthy, my father has always balanced what is spent and what is brought into home. However, as I met new people I realized that there are many social inequalities, which is the existence of unequal opportunities and rewards for different social positions or statuses within a group or society. My pathway to UCLA has been composed of many obstacles related to my housing location, education system, income, and violence, but has also consisted of privileges such as access to AP courses, health insurance, involvement in my community, parental involvement, both parents have legal papers, and my family is not based on the stereotypical patriarchal machismo as in many Mexican households, these privileges and obstacles have been created through the structural inequalities of education, housing, and gender.