Cynthia Holguin

Professor Mena

English 101

23 October 2024

The Experience so Far

For many highschoolers who just graduated from high school, their reward for all their hard

work is the college experience of socializing with people of similar age, joining clubs and

fraternities, and partying the night away. So many movies, pieces of media, and older

generations describe it as the best experience of their lives. For me, once I graduated from high

school, I never yearned for that kind of experience. I felt like I could never want more out of life

than just living in peace with my sisters and grandmother at home. To appease my mom and

further myself a little in life, I decided to go to community college as my starting point with not

much direction anywhere. Being here in community college has given me mixed feelings about

starting to take my life for my own, from pushback from my family to newfound support in

friendships, all the advice has been the same, “Take ahold of your life and shape it in the way

that you want it to be.”

Being with/close to my family is such an important aspect to me that I often feel like it is what

ties me down to my household. The fear of having to leave them behind to better my life feels

like too big of a sacrifice for me to go through with. Community college is that middle ground

for me to be close to my family and still better myself and prepare for my future. Me and my
mom, however, never can agree about this, and she insists that I take leave for myself, going as

far as trying to fill out applications for different colleges. I have always thought about leaving

and finally being free from the rowdiness of my own home, but it pains me to leave my sisters

behind and my grandmother who I hold so dear to my heart. It is always a constant argument

with my mom about what I plan to do moving forward when all I do is stall out the time. It often

feels like if I never change, these conversations will never end.

All those arguments with my mom always leave me shaken and stressed about what I plan to do

with myself. It never fails to make me question my own decisions and make me wonder if it truly

is the path I want to take. I always want to do more and aspire to be more independent and live

for myself, but as soon as I look at my sister it feels like I cannot do it and it would just be better

to stay at home with her, supporting the family through labor. Constantly feeling like a walking

contradiction is something I have grown accustomed to over time. Going to school and even

having some level of success feels like nothing when she brings up going to a more esteemed

school that will practically guarantee my success and start me off in the right direction. It

worsens my experience tenfold with each conversation about how much better I could be doing

and how much better her coworkers' kids are doing compared to me.

In stark contrast, making friends through classes has made me feel better and soothes that feeling

inside of me. Old friends, making new friends, they have all given me such interesting

perspectives of how they plan on navigating life. A lot of those I meet here have a foggy goal of

wanting to go into a specific field and just going with the flow of it all, figuring out and testing
different classes to see what they like here at ELAC. Trying to understand and formulate along

the way what they would like to do. I understand them in the sense that I get wanting to explore

what is out there through different classes, but what sets me apart from them is fear of wasting

too much time in school that I end up stuck here exploring for years to come. I already have a bit

of a plan, but I just keep stalling time to spend time with my sisters. My friends make me feel so

welcomed but I get anxious if it is ok to take time to figure it out.

With some of my old friends, coming here makes me feel like I chose the best and safest option

for schooling because some of those old friends were better off going to those big-name colleges

and still ended up here. Here in ELAC with them feels safe and as though I am doing the right

thing being here and saving on otherwise very costly tuition fees. At the end of those

conversations with my mom and hanging out with friends here at ELAC, I sometimes think that

the best thing to do is to just move out of my house and continue going to ELAC at a low cost,

transferring out when I need to start the program at full force. Being with friends makes me

hopeful of what is to come from my future and puts my mind at ease knowing I also have them

in my lives.

The quote at the end of the first paragraph is a repeated theme that I find whenever I finish a

conversation about college or any prospects. To take hold of my own life and steer it in the

direction I want it to go, and I find it a bit inspirational, and a bit scary. I have a roadmap in my

head of where I want to go and when in my life, I plan to accomplish that, but putting those plans

into motion and the fear of messing up my life so early on is anxiety-inducing. I never planned
out the intricate details such as what classes I wanted to take and when during the year it would

happen but I do know that by the second year in college I want to be able to have a general

education degree before I set myself fully for one major degree such as nursing. Having that

option is important to me and having different certifications in various aspects is also important

to my road plan. Those minute details sometimes are also some of the more important ones in

setting up my future self for success. I want to be able to shape my own path in the future, I just

need to finally snatch it out of my own mother's hands and go off on my own. I enjoy school here

at ELAC, but one of these days I need to get out of here and live the way I want to live.