My strengths are a great places to start. The picture is an illustration of my home life and inspiration to keep going. I find strength in my goals and belief in myself. I believe I’ve made the right choices that led me to where I am and now I have to stick to it and get the most out of this experience as possible. I find strength in knowing right from wrong and doing the next right thing, paying it forward and striving for growth. I find strength in my support system of family and friends and am open about what I’m up to and how everything is. Being accountable to people and class helps keep me focused gives me motivation and momentum.
School has been a long road already and I just started at Oregon State. I went back to school in September 2011. My son was 9 months old and I was a single mother on state assistance, and working part time. I had dropped out of high school when I was 16 and had never really applied myself in an academic setting so it was interesting at first. I had to get honest about how I was going to learn and do my best-so I did what had never done before and sat in the front of the class and hung on every word the instructor said. I took notes and went to tutoring centers and worked with classmates on homework. I slowly began to understand what it meant to try my best and I started learning the value of education. I also was on the deans list X amount of times and that encouraged me to continue trying. Meanwhile my personal life was a bit of an issue, drinking became more of a priority and it was harder to juggle things and do well. So since going back to school in 2011 there were short periods of time that I took a break to save myself wreckage at school. But it has still been something I never planned on dropping completely, and over that time it became clear to me that I should go to school for something I can put my passions into. In 2014 I spent a term with DeVry University online and then decided to go back to the Community College for a transfer degree. I started looking into online universities and state universities that had online programs. (Meanwhile my sister graduates OSU with a BA in Anthropology) SURPRISE
I want to help people!..and Oregon State has a Human Development and Family Sciences Degree, that I could use in many different scenerios and career paths. So here I am. Over the last 2 and a half years it has been a rollercoaster, no longer a single mother, self/family supporting, available to help and learn and grow, clear headed and focus and goals I know I can attain. Life is very surprising and what we can acheive is amazing.
If anyone knows about the struggles that life can throw at you, it would be you. But that also means that you also know about plenty of strengths just as well that keep you going for yourself and your son. Going from being a single mother on government assistance working part time to being a self/family supporting mother who is no longer alone and taking major educational steps is something you should be incredibly proud of. Self- determination has wonders to help not only yourself but others around you as well and it sounds like since discovering OSU you have been able to make a positive impact on those around you. You have a beautiful family, keep up the great work!
From reading your posts, I can see that you have had to work hard to get where you are today. Good for you. You should be so proud of yourself and you will be successful. Life throws us a lot of challenges and those are the lessons we must learn in order to figure out where we are going and what we need to do to get there. I have gone through many challenges in my own life so I am speaking from experience because I could have chosen to let life beat me down or I could fight and become stronger by learning from all I have been through including many years ago being on state assistance myself as a single mother of 3 with no other support. You have a special gift called “resilience” because that is what has gotten you to where you are today and will help you to accomplish all you do and help others along the way because of where you once were. Great job and thank you for sharing your story with us.
Hey there,
I have loved reading people’s blog posts and learning a lot about everyone. I felt I was maybe alone in having dropped out of high school. I dropped out at seventeen, and was worried I’d never get to college/fit in in college.
We all have our struggles in life, and it’s refreshing how open you are about all the struggles you’ve encountered, and inspiring how you’ve continued on with your degree! You should be so proud of yourself for how far you’ve come in your education. It’s so good for you and your family what you’re doing.
What’s your ideal career after college is over?
Thank you three- these are really nice messages. Before I started the post I was wondering how personal to go but reading how everyone shared it made me feel more comfortable. In life I have a lot of oppurtunity to share with other people certain experiences/lessons almost on a daily basis, but in other aspects of life you sometimes have to be more cautious. I do like the blog setting, I hadn’t ever thought of blogging before this assignment. My career goal right now is to get my degree in HDFS and get into social services. I would like to do something with the school systems or with the state. I’m also interested in Drug and Alcohol and corrections though instead of working directly with either of them I’d most likely be incorporating them into my job either way.