First Days, Rude Awakenings, and First Impressions

Picture this: the first day of school, community college specifically, and I take my seat in a semi-modern classroom in a dingy, old, and a tad odor some business building in dire need of an upgrade. It was the first day of my accounting course, something that I was definitely not looking forward to but alas it was a requirement for my Business Administration A.A., and when I didn't think my day could get any more gratingly mundane and dreadful, our professor decided to drop some harsh atomic truth bombs our way. 

"You don't know what it means to value your education. What do you really know about the education system? Do you even know what you want to do with your major?"

Immediately I knew I made a huge mistake enrolling in this class...or at least, that's what I thought. The majority of us, if not all, were sitting there stunned. Here was a professor on the very first day of class of the new goddamn semester telling us, and I paraphrase, we don't know jack shit of what we're doing. The tension spiked in the room, the anger palpable. There was a general consensus that was along the lines of: "Fuck! I gotta drop this class. This professor is insane."

Looking back on that first day and that lasting impression, and writing about it now, feels strange and wildly different. Looking back, my professor's questions were not so outlandish after all. The delivery was questionable but the caring sentiment was there. Perhaps I was being a bit dramatic in my introductory paragraph of this post, but at the time it was as if someone took a glance at my hard work and tossed it aside in a shuddering grimace. My whole world view, well to the extent of my academic career, literally collapsed that semester because someone asked what I wanted to do with my major...and I realized I had no. Fucking. Clue. It was hard to accept. I could never give a specific enough answer. All I coughed up was an extremely narrow sense of direction and shrug with a shy smile. With a simple question like that, I felt challenged. It was uncomfortable. It was anxiety-inducing. And it was exactly what I needed to help me realize I wanted and deserved more from myself. 

If you've gotten this far into my post, welcome! This blog will be dedicated to documenting and introspecting my personal journey of community college student turned first-gen elite university student. Community college and the lessons I've learned there were nothing like I expected. The connections I've made and the support system I built were definitely not how I imagined...because I never imagined them in the first place, but now that I have an amazing one and each day we push each other to do better.

 To the poor soul who stumbled across this blog, I hope you're interested in the ramblings of some random poor college student in California who has recently been enriched by the simple lessons of being comfortable with being uncomfortable, the importance of asking for help, and building genuine relationships. Of course, because this is my life, this shit show will include hard days, hard conversations, and the occasional mental breakdown that accompanies being a college student in the good ol' US of A in 2019.