It's Education Time

Instead of continuing to puke my excited guts all over twitter, I decided I would put all of my excitement and thoughts here. But first, here's a little back story. I'll keep it short.

In high school, I was one of those people who knew what they wanted to go to college for pretty much the entire time. I chose English. Then senior year came and I had the hardest time picking a school that fit my budget. When I finally found one, I was accepted and was even awarded the non-resident scholarship! Happy day!

To my supreme disappointment, I later learned that the school had admitted me as a day student instead of an online student (which was what I had applied for). Needless to say, the college was only affordable if I went online. On top of this, when I called to straighten things out, I was told that I needed an associates degree or a certain amount of credits before I could do a bachelor degree online with this school.

I cancelled my enrollment and fell off the horse. I looked at other schools but it was already February. There were a few deadlines still open but I never applied. I loved this college because it had one of the best English programs I'd seen in all of my research. In short, I was crushed.

So I kept working and haven't done much. I signed up for a Writing Children's Book program but that isn't going to help me get a job anywhere. I've agonized over what to do education-wise for the past year, and I've often felt like I was going nowhere. I kept busy blogging and reading and working part time, but I knew this wasn't what I wanted out of life. I wanted to feel like I was accomplishing something.

I always thought I would be the person who got out of high school and went straight into college for that bachelor's degrees. If you had asked me whether or not I thought I'd be signing up for an associate degree in early childhood education, I'd say no. I don't want to teach. I don't really want to work professionally with kids. But as time has gone on, things at work have changed. (For those of you who don't know, I work at a daycare.) My room is left without a lead teacher and I'm going to see if my boss will give me the job. I have a vision for the class that I'd love to put into action. If you'd asked me a few months ago whether or not I wanted this, I would have said no.

But things change and I've realized that often times, the road isn't straight. You have to take detours sometimes to get to what you want.

It took my dad eight years to get to where he is today. After realizing he wanted to work with computers, he still ended up getting that business degree (which he loathed) first. But that business degree got him a job that led to another, which led to another, which eventually led to the one he has today. It took him years to get the degree he wanted and longer still to get to the job he wanted.

All this time, I told myself I would go to college when I found one that I liked and that was affordable. But after listening to my dad talk the other day, I realized that his fear as a 21 year-old-guy was also mine. At that time, he didn't know what he wanted to do career wise, but he signed up for college anyway because he was afraid he wouldn't go if he didn't. I know I'd regret not going to school, so I've chosen something that's going to help me get to where I want to be. My dad's business degree is like my associates in early childhood education. I don't want it all that much. But it's going to help me, so I'll do it. It's something I can live with for the time being.

I was admitted into a good and very reasonably priced college today and will be starting as soon as my books arrive. And I'm oddly excited. I feel like I've begun to pull myself out limbo. And I'll be accomplishing something really meaningful. I'm so glad I didn't give up.