The Struggles for a Piece of Paper

There are many different ways of going to college. There are those people who have the luxury of having a scholarship due to academics or athletics. Some people have parents with deep pockets, or have deep pockets themselves. Yet others, get some help from various lenders, or successfully manage to balance their education and employment that funds their schooling. There are both positives and negatives for each selection. The negative challenges brought by each method are sometimes more severe from one to the other. It has been my experience that if paying for college is not a question, then one of the biggest obstacles in pursuing a college education has been removed. It is my strong opinion, that if one does not have financial support, it is extremely difficult to go to college. That is why my college career has been a lengthy one.

After graduating from high school in the summer of 1996, I was faced with many choices. Even these choices seemed to have choices. For instance, if I were to go to college I could either go to San Diego State with most of my friends, go away to school like a few, or go to a community college with my buddy, Peter. If college wasn’t an option I could serve my country, but would it be in the Navy, Marines, Army or Air Force? Whichever branch I chose, there was always a possibility of having to go into combat and lose my life. That didn’t sound too appealing. Finally there was a simple choice of just working for a living like my dad has done all of his life. I was already working at a supermarket where there were great benefits. If I could get promoted to Checker or some type of management position, then I could make tons of money. However, this money would never be as much as an officer made in the Navy or as much as an accountant for the IRS. It would just be good enough to live on. The choice seemed to be clear, I would go to college. There still was the question of which college and where the money was going to come from to fund my venture. As a kid I always thought my folks had some college fund set aside for me somewhere, but that just wasn’t the case. My grades in high school weren’t the grades that would be considered grant material either. So after weighing my options and punching the keys of my trusty calculator, I made up my mind to head over to Grossmont College with my best friend, Peter.

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College life was not what I thought it was. I was expecting something very different from high school, more elegant I guess. Grossmont College seemed to be just like high school, except students were allowed to smoke cigarettes and wear hats. I liked it immediately. What I didn’t like was parking and having to pay for textbooks. I went forward with my freshman year taking English, art, Spanish and speech. I had no idea why I was taking these classes. It just seemed like the thing to do. The funny thing about my first semester of college is that after a while of going to classes, I didn’t feel like going anymore. The other funny thing was that I came to realize that there was no body stopping me from not going like there was in high school. Needless to say, after starting off my college career with a bang, it ended quickly with a thud. I heard all of these people at parties and other gatherings saying a lot of the same things like, “I’m taking a semester off” or “I’m not ready to go to college yet”. This got me thinking that maybe I wasn’t ready for college either. So I said goodbye to college, and hello to forty-hour workweeks. The money was great and so was all of the free time. But I did have to listen to my conscience every now and again, telling me that I was simply wasting my time. Older coworkers would tell me that I should get back into school or else I would get trapped. I didn’t quite know what that meant. Well, I found out about a year later when I finally got the gumption to get my tail back into college. I found out its tough to fit in both work and school. Now that I had bills I couldn’t work any less, so I could only go to school for so many hours of the day. This seemed like it would take forever to graduate then. I am in this very situation. I am chipping away at college, one unit at a time.

In hindsight I can see the error of my ways and would do things completely different. It would have been in my best interests for me to bury myself into school and living frugally for a few years so that I would be done with this quest of mine. Not being allowed to change the past, I settle for changing the future. My plan is simple; when I can take a class that will coincide with my ever-changing work schedule, I do so. This plan might now allow me to graduate in great haste, but as long as I stick to this plan I most definitely will get my degree. The biggest problem with me getting to school has never been paying for it or getting the grade. More so, it has simply being able to fit going to college into my adult life. My struggle may not be a very sad or courageous one, but it is a common one. At the end of the day, I’m just an average guy trying to get something that nobody else has received in his family, a college degree.