Personal Narrative: Life After College

Returning to college, after graduating high school twenty-five years earlier, proved to be not only rewarding quite challenging as well. Viewing myself as a self-starter with extensive investigative skills I truly believed college path mapped out correctly, so I never met with an advisor, what a colossal mistake! I had self-scheduled all my courses and although I faced a few obstacles I was finally at the end. After completion of all my pre-requisites I applied to the LPN-RN Fast Track Program, little did I know my past would stop me dead in my tracks.

I understand that my family and I are not living below the poverty line or fighting over bus fare, but this scholarship will still greatly benefit me. When my sister filed the FAFSA, she was not given an extraordinary amount of money. She had to take out loans to pay for her education. My family and I cannot afford to take out any more loans. In 2014, we lost our house due to foreclosure. For two years, every penny we earned went to our savings account to save up for a house. When I was fourteen years old, I had saved up five-thousand dollars for college. I decided to give the money to my parents in order to buy our house. I am a senior in high school, and I have not managed to recoup my money. Meanwhile, my parents are tied down to a thirty-year mortgage. In addition, my grandfather, who lives in Mexico, has been diagnosed with depression. My parents have been sending money over there in order to pay for his care and medicine. Trying to find the right treatment for him has made money a bit tight in my household.

The FAFSA is a good indicator of an average family’s ability to help pay for college, however, it does not work in situations like mine. I have had a serious medical condition that has had me in and out of the hospital since I was twelve and has caused me to miss quite a bit of school. This last summer I traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan where I had an aortic patch plasty, which required me to be in the hospital for 56 days, when I was fourteen, I was the 26th person in the United States to have their renal arteries replaced. This condition has put a major financial burden on my parents causing them to take on multiple jobs to pay for the medical bills, which also makes it so that I do not qualify for financial aid. Although, I tend to keep my

Returning to college has been a prodigious challenge. One in which I determined I would meet head on with resolution. As a fine arts student I was fortunate to find a mentor in the Paradise Valley Community College Theater Director, Andrea Robertson. Andrea perceived potential in me and encouraged pursuit my goals as a writer/director. I took the initiative to approach Andrea with the idea to write and direct my own play in the Advanced Directing course. This past fall that idea came into fruition. As a director I oversaw numerous different areas in the production of my play. These were roles filled by fellow students, allowing the opportunity to provide guidance and leadership to peers. I worked with actors, stage management, set design, prop

Although just about everyone will say they cannot go to college without receiving scholarships or help financially, most of the time this statement is exaggerated to make the seem more desperate and give them higher chances in getting the scholarships they apply for. However, I believe that I really need this scholarship in order to afford and pay for my college tuition. This is because I am not the only person in my family that will be leaving for college this upcoming fall. Both my twin sister and I will be going to college at the same time and hopefully we will be attending the same university as well. However, having two people to pay for is not the only problem, for it is harder to get financial aid where I am from. Living in Northern

The institution that I plan to attend has a cost of attendance that exceeds what my family can afford. Howard University has a biology program that is well known for having the highest percentage of African Americans advancing to medical school. My undergraduate studies alone without any financial aid can put my family and I in hundreds of thousand of dollars in debt. And

Without scholarships, grants and financial aids, I will not be able to attend college. My family has to save up to pay for other necessities like bills, insurance, my siblings and my grandmother. I try to save whatever dollar bills or pennies I can find, to help save money being spent. If I receive enough financial help to pay for my first year of college, I will apply for Work Study to save up on money to start supporting myself financially and learn not to depend on my family income but my own. I will continue to apply for financial aid but try to pay for college with my own money as well. I want to take unnecessary burden off of my parents

I think we should all have a chance to go to school and be professionals and study what we want to. There is a lot of people that didn’t get a chance to go to college after high school for personal reasons. They should have programs that help kids to finish school. With money living and other things sometimes financial aid it’s not enough so most of them are forced to work and they end up not going to school. Now there parents and they have to work to pay for house and food and other things. Half of my friends didn’t go to college after they graduated high school, and some of them didn’t even finish high school.

I was given a life sentence at the age of seventeen. Since I was a freshman in highschool I have had plans to attend college after high school. I realized that I was an average student but I always tried hard in school hoping to one day impress the admissions board of a college I hoped to attend. I took classes in highschool that were completely out of my comfort zone in hopes to figure out what I would do with my life after high school. During junior year I was put into a web design class that submerged me into what seemed like another universe, the cyber world. I even learned a new language, program coding and how to design websites. I was fascinated and I would spend hours on end learning this new language. Soon I decided that I wanted to

Despite the disadvantages I may have due to my financial background, I do have the advantage of having people support me. Throughout my life, my family rarely had extra money for expenses. However, they did find a way for me to achieve a good high school education through an internet home school program. Through this opportunity, I accomplish my goal of graduating high school in 3 years and with the grades and standardized test score that allow me to become the first in my family to go to a university. I

One financial adversity that my family has faced recently is the household income has drastically decreased because my father has left the house. Due to this current situation it has become even more difficult for my family to be able to assist me with paying for college because we only have my mom’s income now.

Unfortunately, although I grew up comfortably, we cannot afford to send me to school without assistance. I have been working for two years to save up money to follow my passions and curiosity in academics and, even with my parents giving what they can to support me, we can’t afford it alone.

Ultimately, school isn’t cheap. My parents and I have been working extremely hard to fulfill my dreams. As previously mentioned, I come from a family of immigrants who never fulfilled their college dreams due to financial reasons; and nor can they speak proper English which disqualifies them from attaining a good profession in the U.S. They work to support my education, so they can give me what they didn’t

My family is just a normal family in middle class. But, as I'm a foreigner, most colleges demand a lot of additional tuition. My family's income level is same with the average of middle class income for U.S. family. Therefore, it is hard to afford all of the tuition that college demands to a student who can't have a job that can earn that amount of

The main reason why I need financial assistance is because I come from a single parent household. For years, we have been moving from apartment to apartment, which was the only thing my mother could afford with her income as a nurse. In terms of attending college, my mother has only been able to save up around $5,000 for me in a 529 fund.