My Undergrad Year

There are many issues for students entering college, but one of the main issues is whether some can afford the costly tuition that comes with higher education. I fully intend on entering college but I understand the hardships of being stuck financially. Whether it be $50 or $5,000, any amount of money will be able to help me towards my goal for the future. I believe wholeheartedly in entering college and with many scholarships under my belt, I will be able to focus more on my education instead of worrying about the heavy debt in the future. Even though I am worrying 4-5 years earlier, I wish to graduate from college debt free. I wish to travel and pay back my parents for all the hardships they had to face raising me. My goal is to be able to

During the past three years of my high school years, I have been taking various rigorous classes, which all share a similar purpose which is to strengthen my skills and be ready for entering college, taking college courses and excelling in them. Moreover, during the past three years, I have been challenging myself by taking rigorous classes, having an A in all classes, and maintaining being ranked one of the top students in my school. In addition, to excelling in all my classes, at the same time I am able to work occasionally on my own throughout the school year, as well continue my hobbies, such as photography and riding my ATV, which serve as a time away from academic work and a stress reliever, enjoying life, and finding my passion. Through my high school years, I have learned various skills, which have helped me grow as an individual and prosper both outside and in academic work. Thus, I feel well prepared for what I plan to do next year, which is continuing to take AP classes and excel in them, as well being involved in various clubs, and helping the community. Moreover, I have been constantly pushing myself to my fullest potential and exceeding all expectation and standards, thus I feel prepared for what I am going to face next year. In addition, I arranged my schedule for next year strategically in the way that I will still manage to excel in my rigorous classes and have a large amount of time to be involved in various extracurricular activities, and help the

Throughout my first two years of college, I have had many challenges and successes. I was excited to take this class because it involves something that I have always been interested in. International Studies excites me because it allows me to understand the world on a more practical and realistic level. I had frugal knowledge of relations overseas when I started this class, and now I could not imagine my life before I knew these things. In high school, the only class I took that involved anything on an international level was IB psychology. I was immediately mesmerized by the different cultures I was learning about. When signing up for this class, these intentions and thoughts followed me. International Studies has positively impacted my life in many ways. This class has allowed me to open my mind to many different cultures, this class has helped me understand the different business tactics of other countries, and it has helped me view the United States in a new light.

When I started college, I was able to use a college fund my grandparents had set aside for me but that ran out in my second year. Since the fund has dried up I have been working full time during the summer and part time during the school year in order to avoid taking out student loans. Paying for school has proved to be difficult because I would like to experience as much of what LSU has to offer and make good grades but working, being active at church, and acting as president of a fraternity has proved to be too much and I fear I may have to give up my extracurricular activities so my grades do not suffer. My parents have not been able to help me pay for college as much as they wanted because they need the money to pay for my younger sister’s

Graduating high school, I was decided as a Family Studies major with a track to Child Life at Towson University. Towson is an out of state school, meaning I pay a high rate for tuition as a student. I have had to take out many loans due to the hard times my family has had to endure. In today’s economy, no family has not felt the burden of the market crash and high rate of unemployment. My father’s business went into debt, and by my senior year of high school he was officially unemployed. This caused stress in the family, but my parents have both worked extremely hard to be able to take loans out for my college education, being so important to them.

The 1979-80 school year was my sophomore year; the 1980-81 school year was my junior year. For both of these school years the Mid-Valley Junior High School and Mid-Valley Senior High School continued to operate in a campus environment in Olyphant.

My Freshmen, Sophomore, and Junior years were mostly uneventful except more the unmentionable things that went on at home before I finally just left when my Junior year was almost over and ended up in a receivement home (a nice little place where kids are stored when they are freshly removed from their families until the people working there and your social worker can find another place for you to go) where I stayed for a week before they enrolled me in their Independent Living program which is for teens that are almost 18 whom nobody wants to foster or deal with because they are seen as uneducated, juvenile dangers. When my dad found out that I was there he didn’t care until he found out that he could get more money from the state if I was

In my Freshman and Sophomore year of high school, I was not really involved in extracurricular activities. I did some community service hours and I joined a club. In my Junior year of high school, I started to get more involved in school activities. Such as football and soccer games. And in all honesty, I can say that Junior year has been my favorite year so far.

I am fortunate enough to have a close-knit and supportive family, but circumstances beyond our control have made saving money for graduate school extremely difficult. Since I was a child, mental and physical illnesses have struck my family to the point that my mother had to stop working for her well-being. Any savings that my parents had funded my younger brother’s various medical ailments, including years of dialysis treatments and a kidney transplant. In addition, my parents took out a loan to pay for out-of-state tuition for my older brother whose depression and homesickness quickly brought him back. My parents were left to foot the large bill on top of everything else and also, unable to provide significant financial support to me during

During the semester in college, I have noticed that when I am overloaded with projects from my classes, I get stressed. At first, I just feel exhausted and anxious, but the problem is when I feel that way, my body begins reacting in a negative way. I get nauseas, stomach pain, and headaches and sometimes I feel dizzy. I think I get those symptoms because my body needs to release the stress somehow and is letting me know by giving me those discomforts. In order for me to feel better, I exercise and I relax at least a little bit.

Everybody has that one moment in their lives that changes everything. For some it happens at an early age and for others it happens later in life. This is a story about the moment that changed everything in my life. The sad thing is nobody know when their moment is going to happen, it could happen tomorrow, it could happen years from now. The day my life changed I wasn't expecting it to happen. That day was full of emotions and the following days, weeks and months were full of anger and questions. My life has consisted of situations, emotions, and lessons because of this life changing event.

Scholarships have always been a mandatory aspect of my college career. As an undergraduate student at Texas Tech University, I was solely responsible for paying for my tuition and I applied for as many scholarships as I could find. Working throughout the years was necessary so that I could afford my tuition. While my parents wanted to help me, they were not financially able to. One of my sisters currently attends Texas A&M University and my other sister will attend college in 2 years. Because of this, finances in my home have been tightly spread. In order to return to school to receive my Master’s Degree, I will have to apply for loans and scholarships once again.

During my senior year at Southern Illinois University (SIU) I was selected for an extraordinary opportunity as an undergraduate teaching assistant for Introduction to Psychology. Within this position I ascertained a passion for teaching as well as a strong desire to work closely with college students. While instructing one section of this course I developed personal connections and grew quite fond of my students. One student in particular, Tamaira, was a bright, upbeat, and successful young woman doing very well in my course and a delight to have in class. However, halfway into the semester her behavior drastically changed as she was often absent, no longer participated in class, and her grades were notably lower. Upon noticing the sharp turn of events I sent her an email with my concerns along with an invitation to have a discussion. My email went unanswered. Nonetheless, Tamaira showed up to my next class. While passing out exams, she locked eyes with me and held a handwritten note on her desk that read, “when I was 15 years old I was diagnosed with bipolar and borderline personality disorder. Sometimes I get depressed, but I want to do well in your class. Please don’t give up on me.” Feeling genuinely empathetic, I said to her, “I won’t.” After class a long positive conversation ensued that served as a catalyst toward her regained emotional strength and performance. This singular event in my teaching experience has had a profound effect on propelling me toward

Then senior year came up. Since I loved California and since I didn 't want my parents to pay for the extra out-of-state tuition, I decided to apply to in-state (California) schools, such as Universities of California, California State Universities, and Private Universities. As I was applying to colleges, I decided to apply as a Statistics major. Even though I have never taken statistics classes before, I knew Statistics would be the best option for me due to many reasons. First of all, I was really good at and loved math, and I thought a degree in Statistics would get me better jobs than a degree in Mathematics. Secondly, I enjoyed playing around with baseball data, baseball stats and thus, I thought I could be able to play around with more baseball data if I study statistics. Finally, during my senior year, I never knew what field (sciences, business, social studies, etc.) I really wanted to get into and I felt that statistics can be applied to basically any field and thus would not hurt me in the future when I find something I really wanted to do. After five months of crossing my fingers and being nervous about my college acceptance, I got all my acceptance letters and rejection letters. Other than San Diego State University, I was given three other universities to choose from. As a result, my spring break of senior year was dedicated to visiting Universities and deciding which college I should go to. After a week or two of thinking, I decided to do pursue my

Through out life at some point we come across a juncture and perhaps hope that the outcome could have been distinct from what actually is. Although there are numerous amounts of people who claim to live without wanting to change a single moment, there are countless who are longing for an opportunity to travel back and change the course of a stage in there life. I have never pondered on the idea of changing my past for it is has led me to who I am now. However as I grow and reflect on circumstances that have occurred, I realize that there are instances in which I yearn that I would have done things differently. One perhaps being, I wish in my senior year of high school I would have worked less hours at my job and enjoyed my classes, events, and token opportunities in school.