After attending Merced High School for four long years, I am very proud of the fact that I

am finally able to graduate and move on from my life. I am not saying that I wanna get away

from this school however, because the friends and memories that I have made here are ones that I

never hope to forget in my adult life. I would like to tell my future children someday stories

about when I was young and struggling to make it through high school.

After I graduate from Merced High School, I will go on to attend Merced College. I know

it isn’t that amazing of a thing to do. I’m not going straight off to one of those big, fancy, four

year universities that cost thousands and thousands of dollars every year in order to go. I want to

get my general ed requirements out of the way before I do any of the important expensive

classes.

My mom always told me that since I’m white, and because we make too much money, I

wouldn’t receive any financial aid after filling out my FAFSA, and she was right. I filled out all

the information for a bunch of different forms of financial aid and I did not receive a single one.

It’s sort of ironic to me how the people who work their entire live putting money into the system,

don’t get to reap any of the rewards. It would make sense for the middle class to receive some

benefits from constantly having to work harder and harder in order to keep up with the ever

rising taxes and gas prices in California, but sorry, I am getting off topic.

While I am in college, I plan to work at my parents’ gas station out in the town of

snelling, which is just about 17 miles north of Merced and it takes about thirty minutes to get to.

I’ve been working there ever since I was fourteen, and have been constantly saving up the money

from each and every one of my paychecks. Infact, I had saved up so much before, that I was able

to buy a car for 6,000 dollars. I enjoy working there on the weekends and I wouldn’t trade it for

anything else.
 I still plan to live at home with my parents. Since I am just going to the community

college, I see no reason for me to move out or get my own place. My parents told me as long I

was working or going to school, that I could stay at home as long as I needed. It is definitely

going to cut down on the cost of living for me, and I cannot thank them enough for it.

When I first started considering what my career would be, I thought for the longest time

that I would want to be a chemist, or a lab researcher. I did not really know what field I wanted

to study in, or what I wanted to research when I had completed my schooling. I just knew that I

really enjoyed chemistry and doing cool science things, so I just kept telling myself that I wanted

to be a chemist. But my outlook has changed a little bit since them. What I truly want is to just

live a quiet life in which I don’t have to work about not having enough money to pay the bills,

and when my job is assured and I won’t be fired or relocated. Because of this new ideology, I

realized that another possible employment and education route for me would be to become an

electrician, or just go to a trade school and learn some other trade. My grandfather used to work

in a factory where he was the head of welding. He started out at the bottom of the chain and

worked his way up to the top. He always tells me about how everyone nowadays wants to go to

big fancy colleges and become a doctor or a lawyer, but people never consider the possibility of

doing smaller, menial jobs, that are in much greater need of employees than that of a doctor, or a

lawyer. Because of his influence, I have reconsidered my career and education path and decided

that maybe, just maybe, I should go to a trade school and become an electrician. Once I have

obtained enough money from whatever job I am in, I want to buy my own house. My dad is a

realtor and always tells me that one of the best things you can do is buy your own house, because

renting for the rest of your life sucks. I do not see myself working on this career within the next 5

years, but possibly within the next ten years it would be possible.