I have always been blessed to have a very family-oriented upbringing. My immediate family and even most of my extended family have always supported me through my en-devours and pushed me to become the woman that I am today.
The biggest showcase of their support was when I moved away to go to college.
My family wasn't in the financial state to be sending me away to college for four years at the time. I knew that a lot of the funding would have to come from me so with my parent's help I enrolled in after school courses on how to score higher on the SAT and ACT and after many tries, I finally qualified for the Bright Futures Scholarship. With that money and the money my grandparents had saved up for me through Florida Prepaid, I was well on my way to enrolling in a four-year university.
Of course, there was still the issue of weekly and monthly expenses. I saved all of my graduation money, and with some help from my parents, we paid off my first semester at FGCU.
It may not seem like a big accomplishment, but for us, it was.
I may have had to take out a loan or two along the way (who hasn't in this day and age, college is EXPENSIVE), but I now have a job, the ability to apply to a program that gives me part of my first year's tuition back after graduation, and the knowledge that if I want something I will always have people behind me helping me to reach it.
My mom mentioned to me not so long ago that when I was away at college for about a month, there was a day at church where every family was given a rock, and you were to as a family collectively come up with something you were thankful to God that you were able to do this past year. My whole family all looked at each other and immediately in agreement said they were thankful that they were able to send me to college, and I have never been more grateful to them for never letting me give up.
It is because of my parents, my grandparents, and my aunts and uncles that I am where I am today. They supported my dream of going away to college and not only offered a little help but the motivation to work hard for what I wanted. I could have basically been paid to go to school locally, but my dream was to have the experience of going away to school and my family is what got me here.