People can say plenty of bad things about the slowed economy. One can say, “It’s hard to get a job.” One can say, “People no longer have good enough credit.” These are problems that affect our daily lives. It affects me personally considering that I’m a college student. We, college students, tend to be a population in the U.S. heavily influenced by the economy’s traffic.
I’m an optimist. My life motto is to be Proactive, not Reactive. Rather than crying over spilled milk, I go grab another jug. With the extreme hardship of getting accepted for loans, the economy has forced plenty of us students to seek alternative funding. Since, I’ve been unable to get the loans I wanted; I’ve been an avid scholarship applicant. Anyone willing to examine my Firefox Web Browser’s history would find countless views of United Negro College Fund’s pages, Fastweb entries, and plenty of general searches on google.com. I have my transcripts, letters of recommendations, cover letter templates, and army of essays on common questions asked such as my biography, career goals, community interests and such. I’m well prepared. I must say that I’ve immediately harvested the fruits of my labor. In just this semester alone, I’ve became the recipient of the Gap, Inc. and Edward M. Nagel Foundation scholarships. I’ve made my mother quite proud. Given various scholarship awards, along with dedication to my work-study job on campus, I’ve been making considerable efforts to be responsible for myself. I was glad to be able to contribute, without much of a dent being put into my pocket, towards getting my little sister a car for her 16th birthday. I’m practically independent.
I’ll maintain this pace well into my career. I most definitely am building toward a promising future. Others aren’t fairing so well. I hear plenty talk of lay-offs, companies not hiring, and general unemployment rates rising. This has inspired me, oddly enough. With all this stepping over toes to the top, I’ve opened my eyes to new possibilities. There was a time when I feared not going home for the summer. Virtually nine months a year away was enough for me. Then I realized that it’s not truly necessary and may not be the most economical decision to go back to Los Angeles. I also had a problem with spending more time in school in retrospect of pushing my graduation back. In light of opportunities I was missing because of being so close minded, I have adapted to times. This summer I will be a Co-op at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This is away from home and will require that I take a semester off pushing my projected graduation of May 2010 to 2011. The implicit benefits of it will be that I get to dwell in flux and allow the economy to stabilize before I enter the workforce. Not to mention it’s a paid position and a government job. The slowed economy has accelerated my progress.
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