Path to Success by Cadence

Path to Success by Cadence - November 2023 Scholarship Essay

College is a guaranteed period of life for many in the world. Everyone goes to college for different reasons. Some go to appease their families. Others go to have fun and meet other people. I, however, want to go to college for a different reason. I want to go to college so I can get the education that I need to become a pharmacist so that I can live a comfortable life.
It is my dream to become a pharmacist. I know that this journey will be tough. In all, I will need to complete eight years of schooling. I will complete two years of prerequisites at a community college, and then get my doctorate at a four-year pharmacy school. Following this, I will complete two years of residency. Earning a Pharm. D. degree will be extremely expensive. I will have to pay at least $140,000. I will not be able to pay for this on my own, as I come from a small, rural, underserved community. People from my community don’t have a lot of money. Though my grades are excellent, and I have won many College Board Awards, and am an Illinois State Scholar, I can’t just rely on them alone to get through college. I will have to earn a lot of scholarships, or take out loans, to pay for my schooling. Even so, despite all the struggles ahead, the pros outweigh the cons.
Moreover, while pharmacy school is expensive, the salary one earns as a pharmacist can counteract the cost. The salary of a pharmacist is one of the reasons why I chose to pursue that career. After getting their degree, licensed pharmacists earn around $100,000 annually. It is hard to imagine just how much money that is. Very few people in my community see anything close to that, even large families. I know that with this salary, I won’t have to worry about my finances if I budget correctly. I won’t have to worry about having enough money to buy food. I will be able to save money that I can fall back on in case of an emergency. Unlike most people in my community, I won’t have to live paycheck to paycheck. My life will be so much brighter if I succeed in my dream of becoming a pharmacist, a dream that I can only achieve through college.
Countless individuals go off to college every year, in one way or another. I yearn to go to college because it will provide me with a chance to have a better life. I aspire to become a pharmacist, a lucrative career that I can only achieve through college. Though pharmacy schooling is something that I can’t afford on my own, the salary one earns after college is enough to overshadow those cons. I aspire to become a pharmacist so that I won’t have to worry about having enough money to make it. Only college can provide me with a way to live a comfortable life.