When I envisioned what my college experience would consist of, I pictured dorm rooms, freedom, new friends, parties, and some learning in the mix. To me college was considered the time to figure out who you are and what you want to be, and have new experiences. I could not wait to go to college! I survived one semester of BCC before I decided I wanted to put college on hold and have fun. I had a job where I was making good money and I thought I had life made! I was definitely not prepared for what the future had planned for me. April 18th, 2010 I was blessed with a beautiful daughter, and I knew my life was going to change, along with all my plans. As I watched all my friends go off and continue living the "college life". I was determined to go back to college one way or another.
It may have taken longer than I had hoped, but I did it, back at college! It may not be the 4 year university I had imagined, but it was a start. My first week of classes was a piece of cake, I thought this was going to be a breeze. I had a ton of motivation and i was so excited to be back in school working toward my degree. As school progress and the classes began to pick up it started to get harder for me to balance between school and being a single mom with a two year old. I had to get use to a new routine; wake up by 6am, shower, get myself ready, wake my daughter up, get her ready for daycare, make breakfast for the both of us, bring her to daycare, go to class all day, pick her up from daycare, clean, make dinner for her and then for me, clean some more, give her a bath, get her ready for bed, bedtime stories or movie, and then finally put her to bed! By the time she went to bed I could barely keep my eyes open while trying to study or do homework. When I tried doing school work while she was up it was constant distractions, "mommy eat", "mommy cup", "mommy color", my notebook and book would be filled with more of her drawings and scribbles then my own work! I started to think this was going to be difficult to accomplish. How would I be able to pull this off?
After two weeks of hectic chaos, I finally managed to gain control of managing my time (for the most part). Managing schoolwork and a demanding toddler will always be a challenge, but I knew it wasn't impossible. This is definitely not the exciting, fun "college experience" that I had imagined. This is definitely the most difficult educational experience for me, but I feel the outcome will be much more rewarding once I have accomplished my goals.
This is a great start here! (on a topic that many students and faculty can certainly relate to). The main focus is clear, I'd say, about the struggles of balancing school and motherhood, and also the contrast between college life and you imagined it and life as it's turning out to be.
ReplyDeleteWhat you could do in revision, I think, is amplify the details to really let us see what a "day in the life" is like, with some hints (if you've found them) about how this can all be managed. Check the master list by theme to see what others have written on this theme--Janet in my MW 8am class is working on a similar essay about what it's like to return to college as an older student. It may give you some idea about how to develop this to *show* us your life more directly. ((I do really like those details at the end of your daughter's "demands"--let us see more like that, and writing in the context of a typical day might be a way to capture more of that sort of detail.)
(Grammar/usage stuff seems clean and competent.)