The Person I Become A Student

Education is very important to my parents and it is not just a means of obtaining a good job in the future, but it serves as a way to get respect and social standing in a world that is so heavily focused on societal and class statuses. Being the first generation to have gone onto higher education, the pressures, put on by my family, can sometimes be overwhelming. In fact, at times I think my parents are more excited and ready for me to graduate than I am, which can be quite comical.

Getting an education is extremely important in my family because it signifies hard work. No one in my immediate family has attended college yet and I would like to be the one that ends this cycle and graduates college. College is also important in my family because they believe that this will ensure that I will have a stable future and this is crucial to me.

Education has always been an important foundation upon which my family encouraged the most. Not just the education pertaining to structured schooling, but the fundamentals in life that require you to interact in society and be a part of something bigger than yourself. They demonstrated how to commit to values such as responsibility, motivation, and consistency; and, how to be open-minded and passionate about the things you believe in. These things all required a sacrifice in various ways. They always stress how “sometimes you need to give up something to get ahead, or how sometimes sacrificing the familiar and what you expect from yourself to get the results that you are seeking in the long run.”

To begin, my immediate family is well-educated, meaning that both of my parents received a primary education, but also went on to study and graduate from universities. I believe this factor allowed me to succeed in coming to ISU, because my parents were able to recognize the significance of their higher education and how it correlated with their careers and current lifestyle. These factors contributed to my parents instilling in me the need to receive a college education in order to have more access to future opportunities.

The transition from high school to college is a dynamic time in one’s life that parallels the change from childhood to adulthood. Both of these changes are dramatic and, as a result, feelings are difficult to put down into words. A messy combination of emotions fills the heart, surfacing in strange ways. Confident high school seniors go right back to the bottom of the chain when entering college as freshmen. These students start all over, just like entering grade school or high school for the first time. The move up from high school to college signals the switch from dependence to self-sufficiency. From a personal point of view, going through the experience of graduating high school and transferring to a residential college campus at STLCOP, made me realize I was no longer a kid and capable of making my own decisions.

While we are growing up, the principal objective for my mom was that my brother and I had enough resources to live. For instance, she worked hard to pay the school every month. However that objective used to force us to study much and have good average at school. After many years, I began to study engineering because that was a dream for my mom because she can't study when she was young. The history and obligation is the same for my brother.

As a first generation college student, I bear both pride as well as, dread. I carry the torch to bring my family pride while I become the first to go to college. However, I feel as if there are odds against me before I begin my college education. Occasionally, to overcome these odds pressure amounts upon me. I do not wish to disappoint my family and their high expectations. Due to the mixed emotions derivative from being a first generation student, I push myself harder in everything related to school. I strive to succeed in order to receive my education. Despite the large sense of responsibility as a first generation student, I am aware in which whatever I do or accomplish in life, the love from my family, specifically my parents will never

My parents want nothing more than for me to be successful in my life. For example, they did not think that they were going to have enough money to send me and my brothers through college, so my mother decided that she was going to go back to school so she could become a successful lawyer. She did that and she finished second in her graduating class. She now has a high ranking job and my parents feel confident that they will be able to get the four of us through school somehow.

When I was younger, both my mother and father would do their best to explain the importance of education for a better future, and at a very young age I did my very best to understand. In high school there was a certain eminence to having a job and I was able to enjoy that towards the end of high school; however it quickly changed as I entered the ranks of adulthood. Working at a family restaurant was an interesting experience for me, but it did not compare to what it was like working as a CAPS youth leader it taught me to be independent and valuable lessons I will be able to use throughout life.

Life is all about choices, and the one choice I knew I wanted to make was to go to college and achieve my educational goals. Knowing that my family could not support my two older sister’s college endeavors let alone mine, I knew I had to act. Throughout my high school years, I applied myself constantly through taking challenging coursework and involving myself in clubs that I was passionate for. All of those years led me to overcome the biggest obstacle a senior student

My parents could not be more different when it comes to how important education plays a role in your life. My mom earned her masters in special education and belives that it has made her a better teacher to her students. My dad on the other hand did not make to high school and thinks a person just needs to work in life. Growing up I felt like I was stuck in the middle of how I felt about education. Now, I am in my twenties and seen what both choices have resulted in for each one of my parents through out life, and believe that now having an education is the best way to go through life. Work is also important and will get you through, but having an education just makes life a little bit easer.

College is a chance to further the education of most teens and adults in the modern world. Many people have the choice to enter college after high school or go later in their lives. Both of my parents made separate choices but both turned out to be very successful in their lives. College is a really tough decisions that could be beneficial in most cases because you do happen to get paid more money with a college degree. My mom chose to go to high school to continue her education in the medical field and it eventually paid off, getting out of student loans and having a lot of money to get the needs and wants of my family. My father chose to use his skills and the trades he learned to work and make money to support him and my mom, and he still continues to work using the trades he learned growing up. Both had different opinions on college and made their decisions according to the way they have been raised and their environment. Everyone’s environment and ideas is one of the largest influences in going to college because they shape every decision that you have ever made and really effect your future. My decision had been made to go to college to make my future much better

Parent’s goals are to their children become successful learners so that children can do extremely well as an adult. Regardless if parents receive their high school diploma, parents still talk to their children about the importance of education (Thao, 2009).

It was 2016, and I was finally a senior in high school. Being a senior in high school was something that I had dreamed of since my early middle school days, and at last, I was there. It was the last year in one of my least favorite environments, and I couldn’t wait to graduate and move away from the only place I had ever known. I had lived in the same town for seventeen years, and I had gone to the same school with the same people for thirteen years. I was looking forward to something new in my life. I was most excited for my senior year because it was the year that I was going to choose where I wanted to move away to and what school I wanted to spend the next four years of my life at. As the year moved along, I slowly realized that I wasn’t moving away and that I’d be staying home to attend college, which was one of the most difficult decisions that I ever had to make.

Now that I am reaching the end of my undergraduate career I feel like it’s fit to reflect on how far i’ve come and some high and low points during this time of my life. Some people may say that these four years of college are the most wonderful times of their life, and for the most part that is correct. But there is this whole other part of college life that is super stressful and even scary. During this paper I will address my personal development and how certain experiences played a role in those developments. Even though I feel like i’ve grown a lot and have developed and learned new things, I have run into some issues. Those issues being family/culture, social and emotional growth, intellectual growth, values and beliefs, citizen and community member.