http://heop.org/blog/student-success-alexandria-cheshier/
Student Success: Alexandria Cheshier
POSTED BY HEOP.ORG ON JAN 28, 2011 IN BLOG, FEATURED ARTICLES, STUDENT STORIES
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I have completed three years of undergraduate studies at {Extraneous Deleted}. Due to my parents poor financial planning I am no longer attending {Extraneous Deleted}, and I have no access to my transcripts which are needed for me to transfer to ANY college. Currently, I am over $50,000 in debt. I have no possible co-signers for any loans, and am ineligible myself.
During my time at {Extraneous Deleted} my father lost his job, “found religion”, and decided to start a non-profit organization with my mother donating food for the needy. In the process they became the needy and are now surviving off of donations, and minuscule unemployment which will be running out shortly. I am now working at my supermarket making minimum wage to pay off my debts. I have saved up enough money to continue my studies take one class at my community college. I currently would like nothing more than to continue my education.
I was always reiterated the fact that I can attend any college I want, the college of my dreams, no matter what. I think many parents hold this philosophy that college should come at any costs, but this perception needs to change. If I had any idea how much money my parents were actually making I could have used this information in my application process, doing simple things like avoiding colleges which were 5-10 times what my family could realistically afford.
The growing need for education on this topic is exceptionally rising, and this concern is something that can be conveyed to students by guidance counselors. In addition parents need to become aware of this fact, and have access to information sessions on the topic of affording college. If I had any idea that I could be 22 and working at a supermarket instead of fulfilling my health care profession due to financial incapacity, I would have simply chosen a public school.
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Welcome to the “real world”.
Parents ain’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact on the “parenting scale”, they are not even close to the bottom. You weren’t abused, and they launched you thru three years of college.
And, what did you learn in those three years? Obviously, not much.
How much money did you sock away for YOUR education?
When do you pull up your “big girl panties” and solve your own problems?
Are you putting your shoulder to the wheel or are you expecting others to push your “life” out of this “swamp” while you stand aside and wail “woe is me”.
Clearly, if you got INTO college, you’re supposed to be smart. Are you using it?
“I would have simply chosen a public school”; yeah, and if wishes were horses, the world would still be full of <synonym for excrement>. I always say that the “shoulda, coulda, and woulda!” will KILL you. If you want to have a “pity party”, I can share some of my great blunders that if I hadn’t made, then I’d be thin, rich, and handsome. Instead of a fat old white guy injineer with a slew of my own problems.
So now that you’ve sucked down 3 years of tuition from the ‘rents and the banks, how are you helping Mom and Dad now that they are on “hard times”?
No, you’re rant is all about you. And, how unfair life is being to you. Boo Hoo!
I see pictures of kids with incurable diseases. I see one beautiful young girl getting chemo when my wife goes. She has trouble buttoning her coat asked my wife one day to help. And, even though, she has trouble buttoning her own, she did it. Don’t tell me about how tough you’ve got it. My fellow alumni, you haven’t seen tough. I read about the experiences of a fellow alum in Haiti. Where people a year after a disaster don’t have clean water, toilets, and are dying of diseases we cured in the 1800’s.
Your three paragraph whine didn’t give enough details to take action on. But, I can’t believe that there is NOT another side to the story. There always is.
All this raises one question?
You said “due to my parents poor financial planning”, my question is when do you assume ownership of your life?
Sorry, but my sympathies are for your parents.
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And, I say to my own deceased Mom: “Sorry, I was such a pia. Was I like this? Maybe I’m grown up now.”
Maybe this is “hard, blunt, and insensitive”? Remember the sources of my education: … and creating caring human relationships from studying the movie roles of Gunny Ronald Lee Ermey! Sometimes, folks need a slap to get them to focus.
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