When I started college as a freshman engineering student, I knew I would have a little trouble with the transition from high school to college. What I didn’t know was that my main challenge would come from distractions. There’s a mall only five minutes from campus, and when my friends wanted to hang out there, […]
Greatest Life Lesson
During my first semester in college, I was enrolled in a first-year English class. In high school I was usually able to pull off an A on my honors English papers without much work, and I thought I was a pretty good writer. So when I turned in my first college essay, I was expecting […]
From Homeless to High Honors
In 2002, I hit rock bottom when I moved into a homeless shelter. For the next four years, I cycled in and out of one shelter after another. There, I saw how people can become passive and numb, with no life or hope left in their eyes. They smell bad, walk with their heads down, […]
The Pleasure of Homework
When I began college, I was unmotivated and chose to blame others for my problems and my shortcomings. I was so much smarter than everyone that I didn’t need to do all the work that everyone else did; at least that’s what I thought. My favorite pastime was staring blankly at a television, rather than […]
A Persistent, Confident, Hardworking Woman
Twenty-three years after dropping out of high school, I finally enrolled in college. In between, I got married, worked as a waitress, had three children, and adopted a fourth. My first baby got cancer and had three serious operations between the ages of two and five. What she and the other kids in the hospital […]
