Blog Entry 6: Getting Through the College Process

I'm sure everyone reading this has more or less gone through the college process. The process of tests and budgeting, of essays and acceptance. I'm not new to it, nor am I an expert. In fact, I have been worrying about the collegiate-sized beast that is secondary education since the first time I received a B in my freshman year of high school.
I have always felt like college was the finally of childhood, and, as could be imagined, it was built up in my head and supported with continual reinstatements of the necessity that college has become. With the weight of college being thrown around. college became a part of my high school life. I was, in my mind at least, forced to talk with family members about their experiences about college, my counselor and what I had to do to make it to college, and my heckling friends who all debated which college was the best for what. I didn't know. I did not know what college was best for what. I judged colleges by their mascot until about the beginning of my junior year. The lightning bolt that sent shock ripples through my brain and body, telling me "You're almost done" was much scarier than I had anticipated.
After all, I was still in high school, yet I already had to prepare for something years away. Something that could, make or break my life. Whether it would be my back from crippling college debt, my mind with demanding classes, or my eyes from the long hours spent watching the textbook remain the same only to go to bed, the restful part of the day, and stare up at the bland ceiling wondering what I had just read and questioning if college was for me. High school was already not easy. Between sports, classes, AP or otherwise, clubs, and friends, female or otherwise, it already seemed like I might go under. This was not helped with the constant drone of teachers rehearsing in tandem "Just wait, you will never get so much slack from college teachers. They are cruel."
The good news is that it is not that hard. Taking it one step at a time makes it easier. Firstly, decide what you're good at and what is important to you. Secondly, look at colleges that highlight what is important to you. Thirdly, decide what you can make without and what you have to accomplish to get where you want to be. It sounds much easier and, in truth, everything is easier on paper.
 Hard work does pay off. I'm a Senior in high school right now taking all my classes that I need for undergraduate school at GCC for the school I was accepted into literally last week, the Colorado School of Mines. I enjoy math so I looked at careers relying heavily on math and I love Colorado. The Colorado School of Mines is one of the top Stem-based colleges in the country and my family members all knew someone successful from Mines. With all the good came the bad, I was terrified that I would not be able to afford college. I looked around and signed up with many scholarship programs that would reach out to me for any I qualified for. I eventually received an email from Questbridge telling me of a four-year, fully paid scholarship to one of 38 colleges and the prestige that would get me. I filled out the application that took me two weeks with an average time of an hour a day on the scholarship form. It paid off. I am now a finalist for the scholarship and have recieved a large increase in college interest that was already present due to hard work my junior year.
What I am getting at is that college is daunting, college is ugly, but college is both fun and necessary. It is not impossible to get into a college no matter your background, no matter what you might want to do. Excel where you can and try where you do not because with the right mindset it is easy to succeed.

Blog Entry 5: Fresh

Hey, fellow classmates. We all watched the same video and all got to see the nasty chicken factory, and most of us, if not all of us, were surprised to see the conditions. I for one would not mind never seeing such a sight again. Then again, the film did open my eyes, most likely as it was meant to.

The documentary executed flawlessly. It was meant to disgust the general populace who have no idea where their food comes from. I think it succeeded. The visual rhetoric shown enabled a tone that can be described as enlightened sadness tinged with vexation. And personally, I don't blame them. Some of the things shown were truly revolting and made my stomach roil. Especially the scene of the chicken bodies being processed; their guts being ripped out almost simultaneously with their head becoming chopped off.

With all of that being said it, it will have no visible effect on me. I will still shop at the same store. I will still go to the same restaurants regardless of where they get their products; that is, so long as it continues tasting as if it was not processed by cold, mechanical hands. I will also continue eating my favorite Ramen: Hot and Spicy Chicken. As said in the documentary, America's worse enemy is inconvenience.

With all that being said, I am glad I know where most of the products found in the local store come from. It helps allows me to make a conscious decision pf what I am eating, of which I am grateful; however, in the grand scheme of things it is simply not worth my time to try and find a fresh local produce store if the one I have been going to is working just fine. An apple has yet to grow leg and bite me, the chickens have yet to take over humanity with what they are being fed. and most importantly the world is not a cesspool of farm animal waste. Granted it may occur, but I highly doubt that. Everything in the industry is being regulated to safe measures for consumption. There are multiple government boards in charge of maintaining a safer world, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior just to name a couple.
Food is tasting just fine today as it was before the documentary. I think that any drastic change in lifestyles is uncalled for and radical to the extreme. Granted, if there is a choice between locally grown produce and industrialized produce I will pick the farm fresh produce, but the choice has to be to my catered to my convenience.
Thank you for reading my blog and specifically my thoughts on it. Comment how you feel, and with that, I bid you adieu.

Blog Entry 4: Can I Afford a Sick Day?

Hey, everyone. It seems like once again we are left with our blogs and our thoughts. For me, the thought that struck me is my ability to miss school. I am talking about all manners of missing school, whether the reason is due to sickness, death in the family, or even a "me day". The question this entry will be focusing on is can you afford to miss a day in college?

The average class size seems to be four classes in one semester, and so the question is reiterated in a different form, is it possible to stay an A and B student by missing a couple days to recuperate from some form of pop up on life? Taking four classes is about average for most students but the number can vary. Let's assume that every class is working independent of every other class, that seems pretty standard. Let's also say you have a moderate understanding in each class and are able to regularly get decent grades by most viewpoints. Your classes range from forty-five minutes to about two hours, for the sake of math, every class takes about an hour and fifteen minutes. Of the four classes, a test or project appear in two classes every two weeks. You also have an hour of homework from every class on top of that every day. That is effectively a bit more than eight hours of schooling every day. Easily said, that is a thing I like to call sadness.

On top of school, you are maintaining, more or less, a social life and connections with your family. You are doing such a good job of doing this monumental balancing act that your friend asks you to help the move. The simple question is, can you afford to do it? In the short, of course, you can help a buddy out, who wouldn't; however, in the long term you have effectively pushed back eight hours of your day. The test you will have to make it up, the project you will have to bust a move and finish it overnight and turn it in early, losing sleep. The notes will have to be snatched from a classmate, and then you will have to go over them alone. And as if that is not enough you will have to go over the homework in fits and spurts as you must stay constant with everything else.

Bam! After an entire week of bending over backward you are now back on track. Was that a sniffle? Poof, and now you have a fever and are sick. You'll probably be out of it for a couple days. That's about sixteen hours of school time used as recovery time. Can you afford to be sick? Of course, that's just, calculating, an additional two weeks or more of feeling terrible once you are recovered. Fun.
What I am getting at is that in college, you simply cannot afford to miss school. The average student cannot simply take a day off whether it be for personal health or a keg party, a different kind of personal health. College is competitive and keeping up with it requires sacrifices. You may miss Billy's party, or not be able to skim by on a group project. The choices made today will have an effect on you tomorrow. Possessing the mind that knows what you can accomplish or do is a necessity when circumventing school.