It's done. It's out of my control; I worked hard and am proud of what I accomplished. What's done, you ask? Well, I finally submitted my college applications last week and am officially in the running to be able to transfer to a four-year university, which is a dream and goal of mine. It's never been a doubt in my mind that I want to further my education and knowledge about my Psychology major, and about life in general, at a California university. This educational opportunity will be able to open future career doors for me, which is something I'm very excited about.

But with all of this anticipation towards my future, I still have time before I find out if my dream will become my reality; subjecting me to play my part in the application waiting game. If I manage to survive until March/April when applicants are supposed to hear back from the universities, someone buy me some Chipotle and Starbucks, please. I think that anyone who is patient enough to wait these next agonizing months in uncertainty, deserves a couple of rewards. I guess a consolation thought is to view these next several months as going by fast, because in all honesty, they probably will. After this semester at my community college is over in a couple of weeks, we have a month off for Winter break (where you can distract yourself from acceptance letters by having fun on vacation with friends and family), come back at the end of January, focus on classes for the new semester, and before you know it it's already March and going into April!

Everyone who's in the same boat: we can get through this! What will help is finding things to do to keep your mind off of the current situation. You could go see movies at the theater or rent some and watch them at home. You could go on mini day trips to different cities near you and walk around and plan some activities to do there. If shopping is your thing, get a bunch of friends together and go to your local mall and do a little bit of retail therapy. A food/sweets and karaoke party is a good way to test how far your friends' and family's support for your distraction methods goes (the food aspect they should be fine with, but you might need to sell the karaoke part a little more). Or, if you enjoy the outdoors, you could find some really beautiful hiking and walking trails (if you don't hike religiously or consider yourself much of a hiker, which I can totally understand) that you've never been to before in order to make it that much more interesting of an experience.

I wanted to mention that applying to colleges as a transfer student from a community college is a great achievement and nothing that anybody should be ashamed of. I know that community colleges have a certain stigma that everyone who attends them weren't smart enough or capable of getting into a four-year university. Some people have the idea that going to a community college means that you didn't work hard enough in high school and community college was your only choice. Another misconception is that those who enter community college to eventually transfer out will get stuck there and never graduate and go to a four-year college. Or, some people think that classes at community college aren't considered as challenging or as good, and therefore don't count as much (in both actual and "street cred" ways) as the ones at a university.

In reality; however, some or even most of those who go to community college have other motivations (financial reasons, they're trying to get a certificate for a certain type of job, they want to get their GE done at a community college because they like the smaller class sizes and then they'd transfer out to a university, haven't decided on a major or what they want to do yet, or they aren't ready to leave home yet) to be there, motivations which are not based on their lack of effort regarding their studies.

I personally decided to go to community college because I wasn't ready to be away from my home and my family, as well as wanting to save money and get a better idea of what I wanted to study; I thought this was a good path and place to start off my college education. It was always my intention to graduate from community college and continue my education at a four-year university. Now, I'm on my way to hopefully getting an Associate's degree for Transfer at the end of the year, as well as hoping to transfer out to a four-year college! I'm very happy and proud of my decision to go to a junior college first, and I know that it's helped me gain confidence in both my personal and academic lives.

So, to anyone going to community college that gets rude or condescending comments because they go to a junior college, don't listen to those people who make you feel badly about yourself or make you feel like you're not a good enough person or student. There's nothing wrong with where you're at and what you're doing for yourself and for your future; don't allow them to make you question that!

-N