After reflecting back on my college career and thinking about all it took for me to finally get to where I am now, I’d like to say I’m pretty proud of myself. I had graduated high school back in May 2019, after that I had begun my first semester at the University of Houston-Clear Lake while majoring in Biological Sciences. To be quite honest, I wasn’t even sure if I had even wanted to major in Biology to begin with, I just remember feeling such a pressure on me to continue college right after high school. I was never sure of what I wanted my career to be when I had just graduated high school, and even now if I’m being completely honest with you, I’m still not sure.

I always felt a huge weight of pressure by my mom and my older siblings to go to college right away and finish as quick as I could so that I could get my career started. This just always felt like I was being rushed to grow up super quickly and start my career as young as I could, when for some people that just isn’t realistic at all. This resulted into me wanting to go to UHCL right away because I felt like my family would just be more proud of me if I went there instead of going to HCC. I quickly learned after my first semester at UHCL that I didn’t need to go there to succeed in my first two years of college.

Although I was only at UHCL for the Fall 2019 semester, it was incredibly expensive because we didn’t qualify for FAFSA, so my parents had tp pay out of pocket. Although the campus was beautiful, the drive going there everyday was quickly becoming inconvenient. Once this semester ended I decided to transfer to HCC. I was afraid at first because I thought that my mom was going to be disappointed, but once she realized how much more convenient it would be and how much happier it would make me, she was one hundred percent on board. I also forgot to mention that in high school, I had never taken any dual credit classes, so I didn’t have any of my basic credits at all. Although I’m sure most people know this now, this is just a reminder that I wish someone had given me; you do NOT need to go to a university to take your basic classes, because you will get and education just as good at a community college, plus it will be much more inexpensive.

Once I had transferred over to HCC everything just felt a lot easier and better, HCC has so many campuses all over the city so I was so happy that my drive from home to school was literally less than 5 minutes. I also just felt more comfortable at HCC, I had seen many familiar faces of people I went to high school with, even people from elementary. I had spent two semesters at HCC during this time, Spring and Fall 2020. I believe it was halfway through the fall semester that COVID was at its peak so in person classes switched to online. After this semester was over I decided to take a quick break from school, was also now majoring in health sciences during this time and I had realized that it wasn’t something I actually wanted to do.

That “quick break” eventually turned into a year and a half break, I was so disappointed in myself because I always used to be someone who enjoyed learning and going to school. I had kept telling myself that it was already too late for me to go back to school and that there was no point in it. I was wrong, during the time that I had been off from school I was still working my full time job as a server, and I had also started my small handmade jewelry business as well. After being a small business owner for a year and a half, I decided to go back to school Fall 2022 and changed my major to business.

After that semester had ended I quickly realized that I did not want to keep majoring in business at all, so then I switched my major to communications in mass media. I love the media and grew up with it, so I felt like this major would be the perfect fit. After switching my major three times I kept feeling like I was just pushing the finish line further and further. So I started to work my butt off, started taking summer classes because I knew I was behind from taking health science and business classes.

Now here I am about to graduate with my associate’s degree in communications next week. I am incredibly proud of myself because I decided to keep going even after I thought it wouldn’t matter. The truth is, it doesn’t matter how long it takes you or how late you start, you will always have a chance and it is up to you to take that chance and get what you want. I think maybe one day I’ll continue to study for my bachelor’s, but for now I think I’m just going to spend this time to still figure out who I want to be as a person, and what career would fit my personality best.

Thank you HCC for giving me the chance to finish my degree no matter how long it took me, you will always be a puzzle piece in my achievements in life. Go Eagles!