Dear Editor:
It is about that time of the year! Yes, students are applying for scholarships and grants to help fund their educations for colleges and universities. All along my grammar school and high school years, I thought about going to college, and I was so sure that I would go … yet, with technical difficulties within my family, I was unable to attend college. Within a year after high school, I found myself a doting mother of my first child, and believed that work was more important at that time; I had to provide for my little one and was unmarried and was not in a relationship with my son’s father. Going from job to job, and then staying home at times to care for my son, I was getting nowhere but depressed. When my son was 4 ½ years old, I married and started having more children, and decided the best place for me was raising our family and caring for our home. Life was tough and the economy was a disaster at the time; my husband was having trouble finding work and didn’t have much experience.
We were on welfare for a while, and while there, I went to school to get some skills to see if getting back to work would help us. I did work for a while in our church as a secretary to the pastor for a short while, then I also worked as a daycare teacher within the church. I was a stay at home mom for the most part of our marriage before we broke up in 2012, when I found myself in dire straits and on welfare again. My children were grown now, and I found myself on my own. In time, I upgraded my Microsoft Office Skills, and attempted to find work. Finding work in a Bed Bath and Beyond store, I gained much experience in working with people, and loved my job, even though it did not make use of my office skills. One year later, I was between jobs, and found myself working in the neighborhood A&P for a few more hours than I was getting in Bed Bath and Beyond. Almost immediately after I got the A&P job, I found an opening with a job using my upgraded skills. After speaking with a counselor, I was encouraged to go back to school, and I found myself opening my mouth stating my major as I did in high school; it was the very same major! I am a hard working journalism major, making the best of my time and efforts in class and out of class, working part time in an office, and balancing it all for my dream job!
It matters to have a college degree to get a good paying job these days, or any day really. I have come full circle in my life, finding that I have that strong drive and desire for the field of journalism I have had when I was just 18 years old. It is my dream, and I’m not allowing anyone to douse me with anything to draw me away from it. This is the best circle I’ve come to in my life, and I am loving every minute of the excitement!
Kim MacDonald