The greatest benefits of a college degree by Garrett

The greatest benefits of a college degree by Garrett - October 2024 Scholarship Essay

The benefits of a college degree are plentiful. Most obviously, a college degree opens doors that wouldn’t necessarily have been there to begin with. From access to a robust alumni network to being able to have a leg up in the professional world. However, for me specifically, the college degree has more personal impact.
I’ve always felt like an outsider in school. In classrooms, I would look around and see the interest of my fellow classmates scattered. Some focused on initiating romantic relationships with each other, while others were engaged in their phones, shutting out the world. I often felt that I was the only one who felt a real stake and obligation to my studies. This isn’t to say I did very well. I was, by all accounts, an average student hampered by episodes of extreme and paralyzing anxiety and prone to a sense of academic inertia. When I graduated high school, I knew that I would have to find a place where I really felt that I belonged; and that meant bolstering my average grades.
I enrolled in community college, where I experienced the same issues in the classroom. Confronted with the overwhelming sense that the only reason everyone my age was there was in order to placate their parents while they plotted to move out, I struggled to forge friendships or even engage with classmates on a meaningful level. My grades improved drastically, however, and I found that my horizons have broadened after I got my associate’s degree. For the price of two years’ tuition, the academic world was my oyster.
Receiving a bachelor's degree is incredibly meaningful to me as it serves as concrete evidence of my efforts and a reminder of my compacity for self-improvement and endurance. It proves that the semesters of effort improving my grades weren’t spent in vain.