Back2Basics

I did it. I freaked out. Okay, I don’t know if “freaking out” is the correct term but I applied for college…again. Coming from someone who hated school, I find it pretty interesting to want to go back. Or am I confused? Tell me what you think. To understand the full grasp of my confusion, I have to give you a back story on my experience. Growing up, I was always the class clown, the trouble-maker. Always got in trouble for talking while the teacher was talking and cracking jokes at the wrong time. In a way, I credit most of my successes to that. Being a class clown allowed me to be witty. It allowed me to make friends from all different circles - the ASB kids, the band kids, the cholos and the smart kids. Presentations and public speech came easy to me because, well, I was used to having an entire class stare at me. After graduating La Quinta High, I didn’t really want to go to college. My baseball coach suggested that I try out for the Irvine Valley College team and so I did. To my surprise, I made the cut. I felt like the cool kid in high school again. Being on the team, having a place to hang out in the cafeteria at all times of the day at school, walking around in our IVC baseball gear - it was dope. Coach Madole impressed on us that we needed to sit in the Power-T - you either sit in the front row or up and down the middle row. Next thing I know, I’m passing classes left and right (I mean, I placed into remedial english and math but still). Community college was the perfect segue into higher education, I actually enjoyed learning. I was taking 18, 21 units while working full time. I took astronomy, sociology even philosophy where we dissected an argument. I enjoyed learning from my professors. My favorite thing about IVC was hanging out after class and the professors would really just hang out and answer all of your questions - they were so passionate about their subject. And then I transferred to Cal State Long Beach. I hated it. Professors were the last ones in the classroom and the first ones out the door. They were researchers, students of the books and not of the actual practicality of it. Being a Criminal Justice major, I went from retired police officers and DEA agents to researchers and people who haven’t been in the field. I hated it there, my professors didn’t carry that legitimacy that they knew what they were talking about. I went on and became the first in my family to graduate college. I got my BA in Criminal Justice and the day after I finished my last class, I knew I didn’t want to continue in law enforcement. So here I am, with a Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice and working as a videographer and a banker. Maybe I wasted my college career on a degree that so many people warned me not to take. So I re-applied to IVC last night in the off-chance that I fail this licensing exam and am out of a job. I’ve studied harder and longer than I ever had in my entire college career in these last two weeks. It proved a couple things. I proved that I can apply myself. So for someone that has always relied on working harder than the next guy, this opened up new doors for me. I was getting the feeling of excitement of learning again and falling in love with learning again. The realization that I am capable of learning these things even got me daring to believe that I can learn engineering or architecture or astrophysics or whatever. So I applied. And in case I don’t get this job, I’ll be going back to the place I fell in love with learning. I’ll leave you with this quote that I’ve been seeing around: “6 months of hardcore focus and alignment can put you 5 years ahead in life.”