Prompt Me: University of Choice

College/university: It's a major part of every student's life, whether they go or not, and if they go, the factors involved in their choice of colleges and universities are huge. HUGE.

When I was in high school, I was a starry-eyed believer in the dream college, which wasn't much, but was much different from where I actually ended up going. My dream college, my sights not set on Duke, Harvard, or Yale, was Baylor University in Waco, Texas, about an hour from where we actually live. I sent off my (incomplete, as I was still a high school student) transcripts, took my SATs, and did all the things a graduating high school student is expected to do.

Knowing that I was going for more than a "Community College," I involved myself in a number of extracurricular activities- enough that I had to "narrow the list" to which ones I wanted included in the yearbook & in the Who's Who Among American High School Students Edition the year I graduated. Colorguard, UIL, and Choir were my favorites, but there was also National Honor Society, Student Council, a brief stint on the Debate Team, all four years in the Who's Who records, class Salutatorian, and if you want to be specific, within UIL, I competed on the Spelling and Social Studies Team individually every meet, as well as a number of times on the Number Sense team, Math Team, Creative Writing team, once on the headline writing team, several times with each of the science teams in biology and chemistry (my physics skills were weak)...in other words, I was the top notch high school student.

I primed my transcript (106 grade point average, not too shabby!), and added the extracurriculars, certain that I'd be ready for the college of my dreams.

Then reality hit, and I got the paper that showed the tuition bill for a semester at Baylor University, as well as my awarded scholarship. I was only 1/4 paid for, and I was not able to commute an hour each way every day (even though in the end, that's what I essentially ended up doing).

My parents pushed for me to find something closer and less expensive, and so I (very apprehensively and not quite willingly) did. As the acceptance letter and scholarship to Baylor sat beckoning on my dresser, I applied to the University of Texas at Arlington, sent my transcript, scores, and whatever other desired materials.

March 11, 2005, due to the "10% rule" (and maybe the whole doing well in high school thing), I was accepted as a freshman into the University of Texas at Arlington. Quickie about the 10% rule- if  you are in the top 10% of your graduating class at a public high school in Texas, you are automatically granted admission to the public college or university of your choice granted there is room in their freshman class (cases like UT Austin call for further inspection, as their freshman class often is far too large to accommodate all the 10% graduates)

Needless to say, although the tuition was much more affordable, and I still had a scholarship, this was not my school of choice, and I was not happy. In addition, I wasn't able to participate in any activities- they all cost money. So here I was a college freshman, going to class for a few hours a day, and going straight to work. Not quite a way to adapt to college.

Four (or six) years later...I'm kind of glad I "chose" UTA. They have a really good school of social work...who knows what path I would have taken elsewhere? I did gradually accommodate myself to campus, although I never really found myself "fitting" on campus. It eventually became a place where I felt comfortable, and I'm kind of sad that I'm not there this semester, my first semester after graduation.

No, UTA wasn't my first choice, and it wouldn't have even been a choice had my parents not wanted me to go to a college "close to home" that was "affordable"...but nevertheless, I ended up going there, and you know what? I'm happy I did. I'd never take it back. The professors, the few people I did connect with, even though we lost contact, the experiences I had, they all had an impact on me. It wasn't my first choice, but it was a very good choice, indeed.

This weeks topic:  College

via

Today's Prompt:  I chose not to go to college....
or I chose the college I did.....

Lack of Structure

I'm feeling a little unsettled right now, even though I don't have a whole lot going on in my life...and that's probably a good portion of the reason why.

For so much of my life, I've always had something going on...whether it was school, or a job, or an extracurricular activity, it seems there was almost always something to do, and now that I'm grasping for straws, without a license and grades yet to be released, I feel sort of in a panic.

How do people who don't have something structuring their life day to day handle it? I mean, even moms have something to structure their lives around (children), but I don't have that. I have nothing to structure my life around.

The few potential I-might-apply-for-this-job places that I've found have had so many qualifications and I've lacked one, and I've been so terrified they'd throw me out because I lack that one thing that I haven't moved yet. I don't have the final grades. I don't have the license. I don't have anyone or anything to structure myself around, and I'm not used to that.

Thus, I have not much to write about. My blog is starting to lack content due to the lack of stimulation, structure, and activity. I thought it might be relaxing, but it's not at all relaxing...on the contrary, it's stressful, and it makes me want to hide in bed all day (which doesn't help the situation).

On the Market

So, now that my university life is essentially complete, but grades are not officially out, my degree is not official, and I don't have a license yet, what am I to do? Well, since the answer is not to lie around the house....I have no clue.

I know that I need to study for my licensing exam, that is a must. In addition, I'd like to do some volunteering that is actually related to my field, but, that doesn't really do anything as far as $$$ is concerned, but it does cost me $$$ as far as travel and whatnot, and isn't required, so it's kind of...not considered the best idea right now.

So what do I do? Well, I've been told to get a job. An unrelated job. Just to "get myself on my feet." I don't know about this idea. Honestly, fresh out of college, what place is going to want to hire me for something completely unrelated to my degree? I'm not sure. Plus, when it comes to the "Why do you want to work here?" part of the interview...if I get that far...how do I respond? I don't know if they're oversimplifying my situation...or if I'm overcomplicating it.

So what does one do when they're in this space between graduation and a license? Actually, what does one do when they're not in school and don't have a job? I've not really been in this situation before, so it's a little confusing for me. Unexplored territory. I don't know if I should apply for entry-level jobs to fill the gap, or if I should apply for other jobs that may or may not ask for licensure, or if I should volunteer, or what I should do. I feel pressured to do something now, but I don't know what.

And the working world isn't what it used to be. You don't go out and fill out applications. You don't walk into a place and ask if they're hiring. You go to their website and fill out the employment application online. If you walk into a place and ask if they're hiring, they'll just redirect you to the website. Even if you ask to speak to HR, they'll redirect you to the website. Very, very few places actually have paper applications anymore, and even fewer actually have people available on site that will talk to you. Even if you ask for them by name, typically they're "in a meeting" or "off site" or "busy" and "will call you later" if you ask to speak to them and they allow you to leave a number. It's so hard to get anything face to face... Even since I first started working my first job, things have changed a lot, and that wasn't really that long ago.

I just....feel lost. I'm in a place of uncertainty, I haven't completely gotten my degree yet until grades have been finalized and whatnot and debts have been fulfilled, I don't have my license, no leads on any social work jobs, no networking, and since so many things are becoming less face-to-face, it's really difficult to get out there and get started. They certainly don't make this easy...

A sincere note

I sincerely hope my newest follows are reading this- it's going to explain some of why I'm not following yet/responding to much, but will later...and older readers, I've included some information you just might be interested in. Or it may be repetitive.

First, I have to apologise to those I haven't been responding to- give me until this weekend, and I promise, there will be response. I'm finishing my last class, psychology. I have a case study to write, which I'm extremely nervous about, and our final exam is also this week. Basically, this week is worth 1/2 of our whole 5-week grade. What I've done so far stacks up as pictured below:

I guess that's not so bad. Of course, it neglects to include the final (100 pts) and the case study (100 pts), and the last quiz...but they drop one quiz. Am I that concerned over the 23/25? Maybe. Yea, ok, I'm still taking quiz 5. So far, I have a pretty good grade, but there are still 200 points yet to be determined. Even if I get a perfect grade on my paper, I'm not in the clear, because there's still 25% of my grade to be determined by the final exam. Even if I do perfect on the multiple choice, that's only a 75% on the final, I'll be lacking 25 points...OK, now I'm being way too overanalytical.

And until the final exam is over, I want to mostly focus on that and the case study, and blogging is kind of my "break" from schoolwork. Anyone who follows me this week (including this past weekend)- I'm not ignoring you, I promise, I'm just finishing everything so I can get my degree. Seriously- if I do well this week, I'll have my bachelor's degree. In a way, that makes me want to panic. Actually, in many ways. If you go back a few blogs, I wrote about it (here), which, funny enough, leads you to a gamut of other blogs where I wrote about how excited I had been. Now that I can count on one hand how long I have left, I'm really panicking. O.o So just give me some time, Thursday is my final. After Thursday, I'll take Friday to relax and decompress, then I'll be back, hopefully. I'll be putting in job apps, of course, but I'll also have spare time (WTF?!?! really?)

Otherwise, I'll be keeping up with the 30 days posts (next one coming right after I finish this), and just trying to keep up with everything. No major structural changes this week, nothing special, nothing profound unless something extremely pertinent hits me, and I might not follow you until I'm done with school, so don't think it's because I don't like you. Seriously.

All my love,

2010 Rundown

Now that it's almost the end of 2010, I just want to look back at some of the things that have happened this year...even though not a lot has happened lol.

January- I got officially admitted to the school of social work, allowing me to begin my upper level courses; I went to the hospital because of an issue I was having and missed the first week of Spanish class....!! That alone brought my grade down significantly. I got pulled over because a cop suspected a DUI, when I was on the way to the doctor, but didn't give me a ticket. Another time, I took a spill at the end of the driveway, when I was trying to exercise more. Ended up skinning my knee and, oddly enough, my chin. Yes, my chin. And not the bottom of the chin either!! I don't claim to be the most graceful person ever.....

February- School, and I cut off a friendship gone south at a time that I felt was best for both me and the other person. We also had the record snowfall in the written history of Texas, and it was a blast! We'll probably never see another snowfall like that in my lifetime. *knock on wood*

March- Car wreck that still rings in my memory all the time. My car was declared totaled, but my dad had the tow truck drop it at his office, and he and my mother made repairs to it, replacing half of what was the front end. I spent spring break at home because I didn't have transportation. My Spanish professor kind of threatened to kick me out of class, and I couldn't understand her reasoning, just because I asked questions that made her think I guess, I don't know.

April- I was forced by the state of Texas to take a driving exam to prove that I was, in fact, capable of driving, because the cop that initially arrived at the scene of the accident was also the one that pulled me over for a DUI. Sucks living in a small town, right? I hit a downward spiral, but I couldn't let anyone know at the time. I got my car back toward the middle of the month.

May- I finished my spring classes relatively easily, scoring an A in all of my classes except Spanish. The rundown? This is my first semester with only one grade that was lower than a B. TCC- Microsoft Office- Word 2007: A, Business Law: A, UTA- Human Behavior and the Social Environment: A, Intermediate Spanish III: C. I tripped in the middle of the street during finals week, ruining another pair of jeans and skinning the same knee as before. Luckily, the light was red long enough for me to run to the sidewalk and try to get it to stop bleeding before hobbling to my car.

June- For the first time, I take summer courses. Relatively uneventful month. Went to Six Flags with my little sister a couple times, because we get season passes every year. Well, for the past couple years anyway.

July- We take our shortest ever vacation to St. Louis, because I have finals the week after the holiday. In our time there, we went to the casino, spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house, went to a 4th of July celebration at my aunt's house, then left. It was short & sweet. Hate that we had to drive so far & back for such a short visit. Courses run smoothly- I ace both my midterms. I apply for a job at the new HEB that's opening in town, the only one in the Ft Worth area. I make it through 3 levels of interviews, just to get a rejection email 2-3 weeks later. Bummer.

August- I complete my first summer semester with an A in both classes, my first 4.0 semester. Social Work Practice II and Social Statistics (I'd failed stats once before, so I was so psyched about this!!). Fair amount of space in between semesters, then I start the fall. The Wednesday before the classes begin, I am at my aunt's house, and I fall down ONE stair, and sprain my ankle. I bounce back quickly, though, and I'm off crutches soon after.

September- I begin this blog!! September 1 :) & in its first month I get more than 100 viewers. WOW. The guy that's been kind of laying low, but sending me messages for the past year returns, and I'm eventually forced to call the police on him after he shows up at the university (he's a non-student), finds my car, parks, enters the building to find me, and traces me down. I've been sent numerous messages online and had passively told him to leave me alone, but ended up having to bring the UTA police AND the city police into it. He stops contacting me after an officer calls and warns him to leave me alone.

October- It's becoming obvious that my research professor has taken a strong dislike toward me. There's not much I can do about it except work harder on my assignments, but I still fall face first on the midterm ending up with a 60-something on the exam, 76 average overall at the midterm. Crappy! I apply for my field placement, and get an interview set up. I sprained my knee....come to find out, I had been overcompensating from when I sprained my ankle....this time I was on crutches for like a month. I still have knee pain. I really screw up the lab midterm in bio, but I don't really care because so far, my lecture marks have been great.

November- My 23rd birthday. I write so many papers that I feel like I'm churning out a book, seriously. I have a ton of presentations too, all right before Thanksgiving, and, unfortunately all in the same day. Surprisingly, I get great feedback (as far as my portion goes) on all the presentations. Score! Unfortunately, my research prof still doesn't like me, and gives me a 55 on a paper that, had I had 1 more hour, would have been 100x better. I asked for one hour. She denied it. #$%^&. I find out that I've received my internship at MHMR Tarrant County, which makes me ecstatic....it's the closest thing I've had to a job in nearly a year!!

December- Somehow, I don't know if hell froze over, or if the cat did the grading, or perhaps she was just drunk, but I get a B in Research. Statistically, in my head, it doesn't add up, but I'm not gonna complain! I got As in both my other UTA classes, which I feel like I deserved because I really worked my ass off. This was the roughest semester of my undergraduate career, and I took 2 classes together that I shouldn't have, for scheduling purposes. I get a B in biology at TCC, which is fine because it transfers as credit hours, and my TCC GPA is still in the green. I start & finish training for my internship. I'm CPR certified, I've learnt about client rights and confidentiality and seizures and self-defense. I have a party where I drink so much (and take so much klonopin), that after smoking, I have an asthma attack and pass out-whether from the attack or from the alcohol & meds, I don't know. First party in years. I still had a blast. I think. I get back some feedback on the papers that I mostly wrote while my group members stood by idly and added a little bit, and I pretty much outwrote all of them. Hey hey!!

Stellar grades (3rd straight semester with nothing less than a C, 2nd with nothing less than a B!), a year now that I've not been in the hospital (even though I had some incidents....lol), a great party, a stalker, a car wreck that has wrecked me (I still have nightmares where I cross Hillside on 731 into a red Escalade), many many injuries (I never claimed to be graceful), the beginning of a blog that's nearing 500 views, and several friends added up and lost along the way. I think I can do better, though. Here's to the end of 2010, and the beginning of the year 2011, the year I graduate college (and consider grad school). Cheers!

Fall 2010, Short & Sweet

So, I've made it to the end of semester, as has been mentioned before. Of course, the peak of the end of semester is at finals, then the second wind comes when grades are due. Well, grades were finalized today.

Let's start with biology. And let's be honest. I have no need to know what phylum a sea mouse or sea cucumber come from. I have no need to know whether a flower will have pink or purple flowers. I'll never use Mendelian genetics for anything. And I really don't care how mitosis and meiosis differ. Honestly? I don't even give a flying shit. You know what? I still got a B. Celebration 1!!

Next comes Social Work Practice III. Now, we have 3 levels of practice class we have to take, Practice 1, which covers the definition of micro practice, II covers the details of micro practice, and III covers all of macro practice. I got an A in the first two. I kicked ass on the individual paper. I had to pull a lot of work in the group paper, but still did well on that. Rocked the presentation. Final grade? A!!

Next comes Social Welfare Policy. Now, you wanna talk about a class that's difficult? Take my policy professor, she'll change your mind quick. That class REALLY had momentum, multiple assignments to keep us moving ahead, group discussions, group papers, group presentations, and an individual letter which I also kicked ass on. This is one of the classes that I was dreading, and was told it would be sooooo hard. I was also told not to take it with the next class I'm about to post about. Final grade in Policy? A!!!

Now for the killer. I cried over my midterm. I got a 68 on the midterm exam, and my midterm average was a 78. I thought I had no hope, and I was really putting everything I had left in that class trying to pass. I was discouraged for the entire semester, knowing that my research skills, beyond finding journals, were lacking. I was at a loss. I felt like it was the end of the world. I felt like I was gonna die. I was told never to take policy and research together, and I only did it because of scheduling issues. At 11pm, I logged into MyMav, the student information system, where the main page said grades had been finalized. I was crossing my fingers and praying that I got at least a D.....but praying more for a C. The grades pull up and I'm silent.

Why am I silent? My eyes are closed. I take a peek. Oh crap, I forgot to select which semester. Fall 2010. Submit. Cover eyes. Dramatically. Approximately 11:10 I open my eyes, and let out a scream like I've never screamed before. I GOT A B!!! Now, usually, I'd be like :( frowny face I didn't get my A......but this class was tough, and things weren't lookin too good. When you're praying to God for a C, imagine how a B feels!! Oh it feels mighty good.

This semester, Fall 2010, was the most difficult semester I ever had to endure, and is more difficult than anything I'll experience for the rest of my undergraduate education. I'm still in tears, rejoicing over such an exciting event, because I still can't believe it. Hell froze over, or imploded maybe, or maybe the professor was drunk when grading my final exam or final paper, but whatever the hell got me a B in that class, I'm so excited!!!! I'm gonna rock this Christmas by hanging out and having some me time because after this semester, I damn well deserve it. Now, off to bed so I can go learn self-defense tomorrow for my internship.

Deuces, yo.

Home sweet....homework

We've arrived back at home and I've already begun digging in the pile of excrement the profs assign every semester thinking theirs is the only class a student is taking (ha! That is almost never the case!).

Since we're speaking of homework, here's a thought- what amount of homework is proper and beneficial, and at what point does it become a sadomasochistic nightmare that is detrimental to a student's career and grades? Where is that line?

I have no problem with homework- actually, the more structure an environment such as a class has, the more comfortable I am, the better I perform. Classes with little to no structure really bother me, and I find myself having a difficult time keeping up with everything.

I've had some good profs, then I've also had the ones that shouldn't even have a degree, muh less lecture a class. This semester, I ended up win a load of hard-ass profs that wouldn't care if I was in the hospital, they'd still take points off my grade for it. I could wreck, but they wouldn't care.

I'm having enough troubles this semester- spraining both my ankle and my knee, depression getting worse, tight on money, groups in class that aren't really cohesive so I'm having to pick up the slack when I'm already taking a heavier class load than I ever have (and ever will, hopefully). I take the weight of the world on my shoulders.....I guess that's supposed to make me strong, but I'm not. I feel guilty about being out of state all weekend without my jump drive and wifi...and all my groups know I feel like I'm not doing enough, but they aren't letting me do more...so I'm really worried about this stuff, especially after the group paper I had to turn in last week.

Well, at least I'm in (kinda) the home stretch for the semester. I wonder how much I can handle. Some nights, I find myself fearing for my own safety (and I'm sure my therapist isn't too enthused with this episode). All I can do for now is keep trying my best, even though my best is never good enough- but it's all I can do.

Ciao for now ♪♫♪♫