Going back to school
I mentioned earlier in one of my posts that I make the joke that I have a minor degree in sociology. Allow me to touch up on that subject some more.
I’ve been taking college courses off and on for thirteen years now. And now, the end is finally in sight. It’s been a long road, I started straight out of high school at the local community college that my mother worked. I was getting free schooling and I should have taken more advantage of it while I was there, but it wasn’t the right time for me.
We had a family tragedy during my senior year in high school and I never looked at school the same way again. Up until that point, I had been a good student, not great, but my GPA hovered around the mid three point. But things happen in life and your whole world changes. I thought education was the most important thing until then, my parents had always stressed it and I believed them. They didn’t have the most orthodox education either by the way. My mother graduated from high school and then spent the next 26 years getting her bachelor’s degree, my father dropped out of school in the second grade to help his family. He later attained his GED and an electrical degree, but it was a long and difficult progress.
They have been my inspiration though, I like to say that I’m angry that my mother took away every excuse I had about being too old to go to college. But here I am. I’ll be graduating from college soon. It’s been something that I thought would never happen.
There’s been a million reasons why I shouldn’t have gone to school or things that could have easily stopped my along the way, but there’s been only one reason why I should. Because I wanted to.
After fumbling for 2 1/2 years in community college where I received the worst grades that I had ever gotten, I dropped out and decided it was time to see something different. I enlisted in the Air Force to get me out of my small hometown and see what the world had to offer. It was a great time for me and I learned some very valuable lessons about myself and others that I can take with me forever. I traveled as much as I possibly could and took in as many sights as I was allowed. I read, took in the arts and tried to live life to its fullest. I gained my education through experience.
I even took some college courses through a school that had a satellite course on base. It was an accelerated course meant to give a degree in management. I tried it thinking that it was an easy way to leave the military well on my way to earning a degree. But, it just wasn’t for me. I had to ask myself if that degree was I really wanted and I had to be honest with myself that no, it really wasn’t.
Then came time to make the decision to reenlist or separate from the military. That was one of the hardest decisions that I had to make. I could stay in where I know what’s expected of me and I had a reliable job with an honest paycheck. Or, I could leave and try my hand in the unknown and go back to school, again.
I gave it another shot.
