Personal Narrative: A Career As A College Student

My College and Career goals include graduating college and getting a job. I wish to attend the University of Alabama. I plan to major in occupational therapy or speech therapy. After I graduate with my bachelor's degree I wish to get my master's degree. After I finish my schooling I want to receive a job that allows me to provide for my family. I wish to receive this job in my degree's field. After receiving this job I wish to improve to reach a leadership role.

I have defiantly not had a normal or a comfortable life. I have lived in RVs and cars on the streets of NE Portland, been homeless twice and I have left the country on multiple occasions cause of my family financial situation. As recent as two years ago I was in Central America and Southern Mexico looking for a safe and decent place to survive in. I missed a year of school. Currently, I live in a leaky, moldy, single-wide trailer home in Rockwood Neighborhood in Gresham. My parents are divorced; my dad, who I live with, is unemployed, has health issues, and has no formal education. So I provide for him and myself.

It was May 25, 2018 at 7:47 in a steaming hot gymnasium when the name Anthony Joseph Sansalone was getting called from the loud speaker, the sixth to last person to receive their diploma I begun shaking the hands of all the board members and everything that I had known from the last 13 years at the same school was over and a new chapter of my life was stating to begin. A few seconds after receiving my diploma the Class President guided us to changing of our tassels from right to left then commencement was over and I was walking out with my future roommate at BGSU, Vincent Zhang, we looked at each other knowing that our high school career was descending and our college careers were lifting off together. High school was tuff for me due to the fact that I have know what I wanted to do since I was a freshman, I want to become an animator and work for an Academy Award winning company such as

As a junior in Early College I would more or less consider this my second year, as I have been taking college classes for three years now. However, I can still identify an issue I am facing with my courses. As I am trying to graduate a five year program in only four years, I have taken on a lot of responsibility as a 16 year old. I am currently taking 6 courses this semester, and I will have to take five courses every other semester to graduate on time. As I thought this would be a busy course load for me, I ended up quitting my job because they could not comply with the hours I requested due to school. I completely regret this, as I now have to work at a job that I am not making much money at and I have even had to take on some side jobs just to be able to pay my insurance on time. Sometimes, people make decisions that they think will better them and make life easier, but they make these decisions without careful consideration and at least trying the circumstance before changing everything.

Although most people would continue post-secondary after high school, I plan on going to college, most likely Langara college, first after graduating. At first, I did want to go straight to UBC or SFU after high school, however, I started thinking of what I wanted to do. Then it occurred to me of how this is going to affect my entire life. From what I heard from others, people sometimes change their decisions based on what they want to do as a career. Not only does this take a lot of time on studying something else after changing their primary focus, but also costs a lot of money. Unfortunately, I know that I won’t have enough money to pay off the financial expenses just to study for the career I want for my future. I need to make sure that

I have always been a studious school-minded person. I went to school at Miles Exploratory Learning Center aka Miles ELC from preschool to 8th grade. I was very hard working receiving all A's and B's throughout my schooling. I then moved to Tucson Magnet High School. I was top 25 out of 600+ kids in my class and got to wear an honors cord and be called up in front of everyone. I graduated high school with a 3.8 GPA something I am very proud of. I worked very hard in high school to make sure I graduated with good grades because I needed all the scholarships I could get to be able to afford college since I am white and middle class and not very many scholarships are offered to middle class families.

Working your way through college can be a daunting journey to say the least. There have been a myriad of challenges to overcome, both foreseen and unexpected. A year and half ago I decided to follow my dream of moving to California and obtaining a degree in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. The decision to follow my passion for science invoked both fear and excitement within myself. I didn’t have the support of many friends and family, as I am originally from the East Coast, many of them seen my moving to California as an unrealistic and unnecessary goal. Despite my own self-doubts and the discouragement of my family I made the decision to relocate to California. That decision manifested the most significant chapter in my life to date. In an extremely short period of time I had to find an apartment, in the Bay Area, one of the most competitive and costly rental markets in the country as well as enroll in school, apply for aid and secure stable

In 2005 I decided to call it quits. I retired from the military to only find myself back in the same shop I was leading rebuilding TF39 engines as a contractor. I did this for two years until I decided to pick up the family and move to Oklahoma City to work on the B-1 F101-GE engine at Tinker AFB. Soon after, the contract died and I had to find a new job. I got picked up as a civil service employee in the same shop. I then got promoted into the F117 Heavy Maintenance Center rebuilding engines for the C17. This was a new workload and we had to set up the shop. I’m not kidding about this, we had to order, build the tooling and set up the lean cells before we even started production.

I attended three different high schools as a teenager. I was a member of the JROTC program for four years. As devoted as I was I was on the unarmed drill team for two years at Roosevelt high school called the “ Riderettes “. My junior year of high school we actually made first place out of seventy schools in Kentucky, Louisville. Which means we qualified for Championship Daytona, Fl Nationals. It was a lifetime experience for me as a teenager. Who knew I would be going to Kentucky or Daytona for free with a team I can actually call my sisters. One of the most things I loved about my trip was the beach early in the morning with the sunrise out and all you could see was the beautiful blue waves washing over the shore.

A family sitting around a dinner table, refugees being placed into healthy environments, a house full of family and friends, these are all images I conjure up when pondering my future. I wish to begin my journey to obtaining this fantasy by pursuing college. College represents an extremely important piece to my future and to get there, I must work extra hard. I see myself attending a University to attain a masters degree in global studies. To be able to get to that point I must reach out and ask for help, the reason for applying for scholarships. After college I would like to locate a job somewhere in the south, such as Tennessee. Once I've had a few years of settling into my career, I enjoy the idea of starting a family. Yes, this does involve

Since I was so young I was worried that I wasn’t ready to take on such a big challenge, but graduating early was the better of the two choices I have ever made. I had to decide on this my sophomore year, which at age fifteen wasn’t an ideal choice to make at the time. There were many considerations I had to contemplate about: my high school career in basketball, college, and leaving my friends.

I wrote this inspirational and persuasive book to stimulate all college bound student’s career decisions. A stimulated choice means that your college aspiration is prayerfully pumped-up with two of God’s counsels: spiritual enrichment and spiritual empowerment. These two activators serve to remind new college students to put God as their first priority.

As each day comes closer to the start of college, the question becomes how will I survive the 4 years of college? How will I avoid being part of those who drop out? How will I pay my gap? How will I pay my college books, fees, etc.

Ever since I can remember I have been fortunate enough to have my parents and

April 29, 2015 is the day I decided to trade my labcoat dreams for a dream with a gown and a stage. In the first 17 years of my life, I never considered to pursue a career in music, let alone opera. I had this mindset that immigrants go to the U.S. to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, but never artists, dancers, or musicians. It was a privileged dream. I was granted the privilege of taking piano lessons since my parents saw its disciplinary benefits. As I was participating in my school choir and in church choir, my piano teacher, Miss Noto, suggested that I take voice lessons as well. I did not find myself a particularly talented singer until I was the only one in my county to be accepted into the All National Honor Choir. In my last music festival, my adjudicator asked me which conservatories I applied to and I told her zero because I was going to be an Otolaryngologist. Miss Noto, who was my accompanist at the time, later told me how surprised she was that I was not going to pursue music after high school. I never imagined that one’s hobbies could translate to a career. Then I thought, why not?