My Past and how it has shaped my time in college Reflecting on my past and trying to think about events that have led to my current life path bring many memories that all started when I first moved to the United States. From that point on, I have grown academically and personally to be able to overcome the different obstacles that being a non-English native speaker might bring, for example constant translation of school material. But my parents decided to move to this country so I could get more opportunities to study a career. Moving to a different country can be very challenging, and it is difficult to adapt to a new environment. When I was about to start high school, my family decided to move to California and establish here where my
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I was always told by my parents that studying was very important, but a higher education was the reason why we moved to the United States, therefore it was a must for me to go to college. Even though they portrayed college as an obligation, I have never felt like it was an obligation, actually I always knew I wanted to study and built my future. But I did not know that being a first generation student was going to be as difficult as it was. First of all, I struggled trying to find the right college for me because neither my parents nor my older brother knew anything about looking or finding a college. Then the application progress was very stressful because I would not know who to ask for assistance, and in my high school we only had two college related sessions where we would go to the computer lab and apply to the schools that we possibly wanted to attend. Regardless of those struggles I was accepted to UC Santa Cruz, CSUEB, and CSUSF. Deciding which school I was going to attend was another struggle that I …show more content…
And also which one was more affordable because I did not receive full financial aid. It came to be CSUEB the school that I could afford, and that for its location I was going to be able to save more money on housing since I did not have to live on campus. Based on that decision I started to look for majors, and to see what was that I would like to do, and the idea of starting school was sinking in and I was actually excited to start. When I first started it was challenging to adapt to the quarter system since I had been on semester system since 1st grade. But by the end of winter quarter I was completely adapted to the system, and I my academic performance was very good. I would get A’s and B’s just like in high school, and I would feel like I was going to graduate in time. However, it was not until the second quarter of the second school year when I started working part time, and my grades were slowly dropping. Having a job affected my grades to the point where my overall GPA was about 2.1. I failed two classes that were part of my major, and I knew I needed to do something to change that. The pressure from my parents to always do well in school, and to keep good
I was always told by my parents that studying was very important, but a higher education was the reason why we moved to the United States, therefore it was a must for me to go to college. Even though they portrayed college as an obligation, I have never felt like it was an obligation, actually I always knew I wanted to study and built my future. But I did not know that being a first generation student was going to be as difficult as it was. First of all, I struggled trying to find the right college for me because neither my parents nor my older brother knew anything about looking or finding a college. Then the application progress was very stressful because I would not know who to ask for assistance, and in my high school we only had two college related sessions where we would go to the computer lab and apply to the schools that we possibly wanted to attend. Regardless of those struggles I was accepted to UC Santa Cruz, CSUEB, and CSUSF. Deciding which school I was going to attend was another struggle that I …show more content…
And also which one was more affordable because I did not receive full financial aid. It came to be CSUEB the school that I could afford, and that for its location I was going to be able to save more money on housing since I did not have to live on campus. Based on that decision I started to look for majors, and to see what was that I would like to do, and the idea of starting school was sinking in and I was actually excited to start. When I first started it was challenging to adapt to the quarter system since I had been on semester system since 1st grade. But by the end of winter quarter I was completely adapted to the system, and I my academic performance was very good. I would get A’s and B’s just like in high school, and I would feel like I was going to graduate in time. However, it was not until the second quarter of the second school year when I started working part time, and my grades were slowly dropping. Having a job affected my grades to the point where my overall GPA was about 2.1. I failed two classes that were part of my major, and I knew I needed to do something to change that. The pressure from my parents to always do well in school, and to keep good