Media Writing: A Semester in Review

A semester in review, where do I start? I’ve been in college since the fall of 2016, and this by far has been the most challenging semester of them all. As much as I’d like to blame all of my professors, it is partially my fault as well. I’ll start by explaining how everything became so difficult for me and hopefully you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

This is my third year in college and I’ve already had 3 changes to my major. I was first a Communications major, but I began to lose interest and wanted to pursue a career as an elementary school teacher. That only lasted a year, however. My parents were on board with the idea, but my extended family (whom, I should add, are doctors, lawyers, and accountants) disliked the idea, warning me that I would never make enough money to live comfortably. I tried to keep it going for a while, but eventually their comments got to me and I ended up switching once more, this time to Nursing. This may sound crazy, but I had a dream and in it, I was a pediatric nurse, and for some reason, I thought it was a message from God himself telling me to pursue this academic direction. Sadly though, I didn’t get passed registration. My inner self was scared to have the lives of itty bitties in my hands. What if I mess up? What if I forget something? Adding to that, I didn’t have one scientific bone in my body, so who knows how far I would’ve actually gotten. At the time I was attending a university in upstate New York and was hating every minute of it. So I took another look at my transcript and saw that I wasn’t too far from being done with my initial Communications degree. It didn’t take long before I had made up my mind. At the end of the semester, I packed up my entire dorm room by myself and got on a Greyhound bus back home.

Of course to add to all of the madness, my mother was looking to move out of the state and that either meant, one: go with her, two: find a new school in NY to attend (that has housing), or three: get a job and support myself. I thought the third of the options would be the best, as I was trying to leave NY at some point anyway. I called up some family members living down in Florida if I could stay with them until I found myself a job and could afford an apartment - can you believe I got rejected?! Mind you, these were the same family members who heckled me about getting a degree in teaching. Instead, I decided to work in New York while living at home and save enough to get a place off the bat. If I were to work this much though, I’d need to spend as little time in a classroom as possible. My normal schedule was to only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I felt like these were prime times to be earning money. So, the only way to get around it was to take online courses… all online courses.  This semester, I took five online courses in order to graduate by the summer time (which was when my mother was planning on moving away).  I’d taken online courses before and had no problem with them, but never all at once. The course load was the heaviest it’s ever been and I was tuckering myself out trying to keep up. I was stressed beyond measure. Locked up with in my bedroom or in this city’s musty public library. I’d have 15-20 assignments every week and I was struggling to keep up. I was unable to keep my job, so I quit. Basically, it all went downhill from there.

No job meant no income, no income meant no apartment. No apartment meant no moving! I had my heart set on Florida for years and I came so close to actually getting to go, but again, I’d miss the mark. I tried to apply to JWU in North Miami, and I ended up getting in, but was blindsided by the cost of attendance. After financial aid was given to me, they were asking me to pay $22,000 in student loans (per year). I gave up on the move to Florida (again) at this point, and decided to try a different route. An apartment here in New York was 100% out of the question, but my mother was moving into a house in Flint, Michigan. I was totally against following her there at first, mainly because of the weather, but I was running out of options. I decided to apply to Michigan State to start my second degree (providing I finish the first).

So here we are at the end of the semester. I’m sure I’m a few cards short of a full deck at this point. I’m beyond stressed and have two classes that I’m teetering on the pass or fail line. I’m still waiting to hear back from MSU, and if all goes well, I’ll be a Spartan this fall. If it doesn’t though, well…

PS.: I was supposed to include a picture pertaining to "college life", but I thought including an image to represesnt my mood until further notice would be sufficient: