The Goals
When I first applied to community college, my goals were all over the place. At first, I wanted to be a writer. However, I allowed everyone to talk me out of it only because it had been some time since I last wrote anything. The confidence in my own abilities were already low. After that, it dropped. So I applied to be a Human Services major. The first semester was not as bad as I thought it would be. However English 101 was tough. The professor was a strict grader. When I say the class worked our asses off to pass, I mean it. The funny thing was that my essays were always good. There were only minor mistakes in my papers. Except in English, none of my papers were lower than a B+. My first semester English professor gave me a lot of C+'s and B's and until the final, I was averaged at C+.
I took intro to human services in the 2nd semester. In order to graduate in 2 years, it either had to be taken in the first semester or taken in the winter. Not many people knew or know this. I did not and automatically fell behind. Even with all the advising we were forced to get, somehow, something always goes wrong. That semester I was sporadic. I decided to join the Social Services Club and became president. So then my goals were to,
1: Graduate in 2 years
2: Graduate with a major in Writing, Human Services
3: Get social (join a club, make friends,etc) be president?
4: Get into graduate school
5: Get my Bachelors with a possible internship
6: Get a job
7: Get stabilized
As time went on, the goals changed. My human services professor taught me a lot. She taught us about the red tape and the limits of how much a social worker is allowed to help their clients. How political it was. She also said that by the end of her class, we would know if we would want to be a social worker or not. At the same time, I took a sociology class. I must say that if there is one thing that college does is that it can make you into an activist. It also will help you understand yourself and establish your identity.
In August 2015, my grandmother died. I went to her funeral and saw family that I had not seen since I was a child. These two combined and gave me a whole new perspective on my life. It gave me strength. It gave me motivation and a sense of purpose. So against everyone's advice (and unlike the first time), I changed my major to Liberal Arts. Everyone was mad, shocked, surprised, upset, etc. At the end of the day, it was not about them. They haven't lived my life, or experienced it. Why the hell should they control it? They wouldn't be the ones living with the consequences if it failed. Although, they may if it succeeded.
Again, my goals changed:
1: Graduate in 2 years
2: Graduate with a major in Writing, Human Services, Liberal Arts
3: Club Services and such took up too much focus for my time limit. Still be social, but in class
4: Get into graduate school
5: Get my Bachelors in Social Psychology
6: Get a job in clinical social psychology
7: Get stabilized
You're probably wondering if it stopped there. Uhhh, no. I found out about a nontraditional degree program offered in few schools. A way to design your own major. You pick two majors that interest you. Then you combine them into one. You also have a wide range of other school's courses that would help you in designing the degree. It is not limited to just that school. There was another school that did the same thing, except it got you as far as a Masters and it was a private school.
Based on price alone, it would have been extremely hard work to maintain. The major I wanted was in social child psychology. It would be a degree that looks at the child's thoughts, behaviors, and feelings in all social environments and influences that contribute to their growth in society. It is my hope that we can try to help parents understand their child(ren) on individual levels and without the stereotypes of gender, race, culture, etc. Not every child is the same. The world is changing. And we cannot remain constant in it. We must adapt. So the old way of doing things, just won't cut it any more.
So again:
1: Graduate in 2 years
2: Graduate with a major in Writing, Human Services, Liberal Arts
3: Be social in class
4: Get into a nontraditional graduate school
5: Create my Bachelors in Social Child Psychology
6: Start a business "consulting" in social child psychology
7: Start a research project
8: Get stabilized
In the process, I (again) tried to be spontaneous. I applied to a scholarship that gave a free class, $1000, personal finance knowledge, a textbook, and an internship. Big mistake. I said I wasn't going to taking anything extra and I did it anyway. It anchored me down and I ended dropping my focus in the classes I really wanted to take. The lesson in this is to completely research scholarships. The $1000 went to paying off my loan because the school could not give me the money.
I won another scholarship though. At first they denied me, but then a call came in saying they changed their mind. $4000 split evenly into 4 year increments. It also limited me into the schools that I could choose. It just so happened that I could still get into my nontraditional school if I chose the scholarship school as the home school.
Also, I got invited to the honor society and accepted. So many things occurred, but all of it for the purpose of becoming a social child psychologist. The new goals became:
1: Graduate with at least a 3.5 GPA in 2 years
2: Graduate with a major in Writing, Human Services, Liberal Arts
3: Be social and network in class
4: Get into a nontraditional graduate school
5: Create my Bachelors in Social Child Psychology
6: Start a business "consulting" in social child psychology
7: Start a research project
8: Get stabilized
Most of these goals have been met. I graduated in 2 years (this past June) with a 3.4 GPA though. I got my degree in Liberal Arts. Made decent connections with my classmates and professors. And finally, got into my beloved nontraditional school.
It was not easy getting to this point. I don't regret the choices I made. Everything I did had a purpose and gave me the necessary experiences to better understand myself and the world around me. Shit, it may have created a monster.
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