As I’ve stated previously on this blog, the three-semester deal wasn’t my first time at college. I had previously gone to college when I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be there. In high school I was a straight-A honors student, President of the math club, and captain of the Academic Decathlon team. That momentum carried me forward, and without really ever deciding if it was what I wanted, I found myself with four more years of school ahead of me. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but my heart just wasn’t in it.
Life has changed for me in so many ways when making this decision. As a single mother I thought I would never have made it this far. Being the only daughter of my mother my two brothers graduated from college with honour and has good jobs. I had a young baby and did not complete my high school education. I see my friends getting good jobs and pursuing their education and I was a sixteen year old mother with nothing to look forward to.
I wasn’t able to do a lot of things that I wanted to do because of my grades. At one point I was actually ineligible to play sports, what are everything to me. My parents influenced me to do better in school by allowing me to get my license the day my grades went above a 3.0. It took me awhile but by the end of the semester I had a 3.1 and was able to get my driver’s license. My grades at an all-time low were around a D average, I was able to go from that to a B average in one semester.
What degree should I get? After asking myself these questions, I felt like there was no chance I could get into college and earn a degree that would better my future. Some people may find returning to school a very easy decision but, it takes motivation, determination, and confidence. I always thought when I finished high school I would take a year off and then start college. Most things do not happen the way we expected and, I did not start college a year after high school.
As a single parent, I had to put my educational goals on the back burner to raising my family. I excelled in High School, which helped facilitate securing a position with a firm in which financially allowed me to keep a roof over our heads, clothes on our back and food on the table. While furthering my education was always in the back of my mind, I knew at that point and time in my life, it just wasn’t in the cards. Fast forward 25 years: my children are all grown up and with the exception of my 16 year old, they’re all self supporting and out on their own. I now have the opportunity to fulfill my mother’s desire for me to continue my education and reach that goal I made over 30 years ago.
From the beginning of my school career, my elders always stressed the importance of education. Throughout high school, I never understood why an education was so important, I often would goof off or not take my studies seriously. While most high school graduates are deciding where to go to college and what to study, I decided to focus on raising a family. When my youngest child turned three, I finally entered the workforce. This is when I realized how important a college education really was.
It pays well,but there is no room for advancement in that department. I have submitted my resume for many positions. This year I’ve been rejected three times or passed over for someone with a degree. For a while I believed this is as far as i will get, but I refused to give up. I decided to go back to school and get a college education, I knew my work schedule would not permit me to go into an actual classroom so i opted for the next best, online college.
Repeating two years of high school would be hard for me to take in. Thoughts ran haywire through my head. I was already seventeen years old. How old will I be when I graduate? Motivated to earn a degree, I did not let that stop me from achieving my dreams.
I dropped out of school when I had my first child and I didn’t get my high school diploma until I had my 3th child. I was very determined to at least get my high school diploma that was a successful day when I received my High School Diploma. My next challenge was to go to college staying focused. I’ve been part of activities and would stop right in the middle, only because either it wasn’t interesting or I would get frustrated. But I came to find out that it was not a great idea to start something and not finish, only because it would start to become a habit and your life would always be flip flop, plus it wasn’t a good example.
Additionally, there's something about essay and paragraph writing that just demands my full attention; summer school excellently provides this opportunity . I mean, for some reason, I can never concentrate or even get myself started on writing non-opinionated pieces. Call me shallow, but they just don't come to me naturally. Having three other academic courses will turn this into an impossible task; therefore, I'm taking English in the summer so I have almost the whole day to get started. To conclude, by taking English, a subject that's not my best, in the summer, I'm greatly increasing the positive outcomes to come out of my last year at high school.