My College Experience and Its Value by Lisa

My College Experience and Its Value by Lisa - June 2013 Scholarship Essay

     In high school I thought attending either a two-year or four-year college consisted of me working hard to achieve a degree that would in turn help me land a job. Not only would I walk away with a degree to help me out when it came down to looking for a job, but the useful and successful skills would also come in handy. That job would help me pay back the money I borrowed in the first place to complete my higher education. But, after attending a college for my freshman year I found out that attending a college was so much bigger than what I originally thought.
     Not only does attending college get you one step closer to being qualified for a career of your dreams, but college also allows you to have fun while you work hard. Now, going to college can be fun because you get to meet new people who have the same interests as you. Having professors that care about you and want to see you excel inside and outside the classroom. Then, you can also explore a whole new realm of math, science, literature, and even a new language. You could even take an array of classes that peak your interest and meet your wildest desires, of course all along with work hard towards that degree in the end which will help you ensure a job after you graduate.
     Of course, your parents always say they want their children to do better than they did; therefore going to college is not only seen as a fun place but as a place that teaches any individual responsibility and independence. Most of the time, we all can’t wait to go to college because we are finally away from our parents telling us what to do and when to do it. But, now when at college we find out for ourselves that our meals aren’t always going to be cooked and ready for us and our laundry isn’t going to wash itself. Plus, when it’s getting late and we are still working hard on a paper, your parents aren’t going to be there to tell you to go to bed and get a good night’s rest for tomorrow’s classes. When you look at the whole “college experience” this way, it can be a little overwhelming and hard to bare, but college isn’t only meant to get us ready for our possible careers, it is also a building guide to teach us how to live on our own and fend for ourselves because sooner or later we will truly be out on our own.
     In the end, college to me isn’t just a place where I have to work hard and study all the time to get my degree to help me get a job and in turn pay off my college bills. Now having spent a whole year as a college student I understand that when going to college comes a whole lot of responsibility and independence. Not only do I get the freedom to take classes of my choice and ones that also peak my interest and push me closer to my desired career.  To me, college stands for getting a higher education to help me succeed later on in my life and throughout these four years of my life and college is going to help me find out the type of person I am going to become. Therefore my college education means the world to me and it is going to be something you can’t put a price on, because it will be so valuable and priceless to me.