My Experience Of Post-Secondary Education

I was born a on a cold winter day in my grandparent’s house in a small southern town during the civil rights era. I spent the next nine years of my life with my grandparents who were extremely loving, encouraging and poor. I was then sent to Los Angeles along with my older brother and sister to live with my mother. As a single parent of four she may have loved us dearly, but it was never spoken or shown. Growing up in the south was difficult because of poverty and racial conditions, yet growing up in the ghettos of Los Angeles presented more challenges and less resources.

Education became a personal endeavor as I was a good student in a bad situation. My mother saw her future as well as ours in the lyrics of a song “Que sera, sera whatever will be, will be, the future 's not ours to see.” Education was not a priority for her, as we were expected to graduate from school or not and find a job. This attitude appeared to be shared by my inner city schools as they too neglected to advise me of potential options. Consequently as a teen my knowledge of post-secondary education was non-existent as I had never known anyone with a college degree nor dreamed that I could achieve such an accomplishment. …show more content…
I was fortunate enough to find an apprenticeship as an Operating Engineer where I graduated at the top of my class. My trade provided for a career that was both financially and emotionally rewarding and allowed me to comfortably raise my family in the suburbs. By now I understood the value of a college education and focused on imparting those values upon my children. I watched with pride as they advanced educationally, while simultaneously feeling incomplete at not being a college graduate