The Takeover of a Generation

First Time Student

Going to college is a big decision among students once they have entered high school. If you’re a drop out like me then you can realize that it wasn’t a very big thing for me. I had to take the QCC GED test in order to get to attend college somewhere. Although years after I took that test; I decided to actually do something about it. So I enrolled into Quinsigamond Community College and started in the middle of September. I had no other choice to attend this school because I was a drop out. Since then college life has been as interesting as someone being thrown through a flaming circle in the circus. I dropped out of high school twice; once when I was a junior and the second was when I was a senior. High school wasn’t really where I wanted to be. I was placed into an “alternative education” classes. It wasn’t considered special education classes though don’t get that idea. The A.E. periods I was taking was English 9/10; Math Connections; And English 11/12. These classes were where the kids who would just wear their headphones or just sleep. I had no other choice but to attend these under-supervised classes. I got tired of the classes over time though. So I dropped out in 2004. Living next to the high school was rather beneficial for me. Students would skip class and walk seven houses down and be at my house. It was insane I had over 10 kids in my house at one time because my mother would work 7AM-7PM every day. I went back to school in 2005 and dropped out once again. Over those years I have moved far and wide around the North East. Those six years were fun I was doing temp jobs which led me to learn tasks to actually get a real job. In 2011 I needed to move back home and the fun spiraled down to just a crawl. So I made the decision to try and better myself. I decided to start the quest on the way to becoming somewhat of a professional in the human services field. So with my GED in hand I started applying to a few colleges. The colleges I applied to were; WPI; WSU; Anna Maria College; Vermont Institute of Technology; and Montachusett Community College. Sadly because of my dropout status QCC was the only college around to accept me. I thought that even with higher average scores on my GED exam I could go somewhere without transferring to another school after. I was full of disappointment when I realized I had to do eight years of school instead of the four I wanted to succeed on. The admissions process was fairly an easy task. I just needed to get a physical copy of my GED scores to the school. Since this was the college that accepted me, the woman told me that she could just send an email with my scores the Admissions office free of charge. When I first went to the Admissions office I thought I would need to pay a fee but that nice woman waived that fee also. It was a very long wait to see if my financial aid would go through and three days before school I looked online and saw the funds in my student account. So I went to the school and did some school shopping. I got my books; pens; pencils; markers; notebooks; a flash drive; and also a netbook. The first day of class was interesting. Two of my classes were in the same building and two in the other. There were much fewer students here than I thought there were going to be but I still considered it crowded. The many stairs to climb, is very tiring and cramped. My first classes in my freshman year were; Eng. 91; Eng. 96; Mat090: Intro to Microcomputer Applications. My schedule was set up nice I began with English and ended with English just like I wanted it to be. I came to school every day a few hours early just to get out of the house and get things done here. My daily routine was stopping at Dunkin Donuts and getting an ice coffee, smoking a lot of cigarettes along the way and getting to school to hang out for a few then do some work. The first semester here was fairly easy and I earned a GPA of 3.75. Hopefully these grades will continue beyond the Community College I attend. Overall the transition of being a bum and doing nothing every day to being a college student has been challenging. I realized that no matter what I wanted to achieve in life I needed a better education to make that happen. The admission to my first college was exciting but also depressing because it was not the college I wanted to get into. Although the process after I got my acceptance letter was an easy hill to climb. As I continue my education it will ease me that knowing one day I will be where I feel comfortably in life for an everyday living. I will hopefully be going to Assumption College to further continue my education and climb the ladder of successfulness.