In today's American society, education is commonly looked at as something that is automatically provided to people. I mean, you can get an education anywhere, right? Education in this country is not hard to come by. From the ages of 5-18, school is typically free—that is of course unless you go to a private or a boarding school. However, once you graduate high school and go into college—even though it is still easy to access further education—it becomes expensive.

I am not familiar with how the education programs work in other states across the nation; however, I am familiar with Tennessee's programs. The year that I graduated high school (2015) they adopted the Tennessee Promise program which allows graduating high school students to go to a two-year community college for free. All that is required of these students to be able to take advantage of this offer is to go to a couple mandatory meetings and complete a minimum number of community service hours.

Now, I know that school is not for everyone—trust me I know this. But for those who are just simply too "lazy" to go to school, that makes me so sad. Education is so easily accessible here compared to other third-world countries where some are struggling to even get a school building constructed. If school is not for you, that is completely okay, however, find something that you enjoy doing and build on it so that you can make a better future for yourself. For those students who chose to go to a university, I applaud you. Even though some might have already had a college tuition fund saved up and have planned on going to a university all your life, I still applaud you.

In my case, I had $0 saved up for college. Yep, you saw that right. $0. I am the first person in my family to go to college and I chose to go to an SEC university school. Now I am not saying that it is required for everyone to go to a big university school—my point is that there are still students, like myself, who choose to go to school away from home and become independent and have to learn to do things on my own. There are also still students like me who have no money saved up for college and are still willing to take out thousands of dollars in loans so that I can get the education that I know I am worthy of having.

And before you start with that "But you didn't have to go to a university school and spend that much money on education" crap, just stop. First off, if you have never been to college then you personally have no idea how it feels when you know you have found that college that is going to be your home for the next four years. It is the greatest feeling in the world, and if I would have stayed home and gone to Middle Tennessee State University, I would have been the most miserable person walking planet Earth. Although, if you have gone through college, then I am sure you know that feeling of your university just being your 'home', and if you don't...then I am sorry your parents forced you to go to a university that you did not want to go to.

Bottom line is, education is knowledge and knowledge is power. I absolutely love school and I would stay in school for the rest of my life if I would not go millions of dollars in debt from student loans. I love sitting in class and learning about completely new things, whether it is Psychology, Sociology, Biology, or even writing an essay. There is something so stellar about sitting in a lecture classroom and being able to say that you are a student at that university. I understand not everyone in the world is as nerdy and school-oriented as I am, but I just understand the value and importance of education, especially since I am the first one in my family to further my education after just high school. It is a form of self-accomplishment and self-power that I pride myself in having.

With as easily accessible as education here is, it is just hard for people to value the importance of it, and of course that is expected, because this is America and we are greedy and we take advantage of everything we possibly can. However, regardless of what you hear, education IS important. Whether you choose to educate yourself at a university, a community college, a technical school, a state college, a beauty school, no matter what it is you need to educate yourself on something. Do something that you are proud to say "Yep, I learned how to do that", no matter what kind of school you learned it from. LEARN about something, LEARN how to do something, just LEARN something because that brain power can change the world.