As I step into the next four years, I am starting my life independently. I have to make decisions on my own and handle my business. Going from being a sheltered kid to having to be independent is a hard thing to do. I consider everything when looking for the right college for me. My biggest concern was the location. I had the biggest problem with this because I knew I would get homesick. I live in California, so a part of me only wanted to apply and be accepted to colleges in California. UC Santa Barbara was my #1 school. In my AVID class during my sophomore year, I had a field trip to UC Santa Barbara. This was my first time going to a college outside of Bakersfield and it was a wonderful experience. I fell in love with the scenery and location as well as the engineering program. My want to stay in California made me overlook any other opportunity I had to be somewhere else. I couldn’t see myself being away from my family, so I planned to attend somewhere in California. Until I took advantage of the opportunities to apply outside of California.

I finally realized that no matter where I go, I’m going to feel homesick because there is a distance between my family and me. On the common app, I applied to schools outside of California. I have received some acceptance letters already but one that caught my eye was the New York Institute of Technology. Not only did I get accepted but I also got a scholarship for the school. In hindsight, it may not seem like a lot because their tuition is a lot but it was still something and I was grateful for it. Another concern I had when looking for a college was the tuition. I’m hoping that I can get a full ride somewhere or pay as little as possible. I have been slacking a little bit in applying for scholarships. So far I’ve applied to 20 but my goal is to apply apply apply. It does get tiring cause it’s the same thing over and over and a part of me feels like it’s a waste of time. I discourage myself because I don’t think I will get any but I’d rather get one scholarship for $2,000 or $5,000 than nothing at all. My last and biggest concern was their academic majors. I want to major in mechanical engineering.

Not every school will have engineering and most schools don’t have the best engineering program. It would make more sense to apply to the colleges that specialize in it, right? Wrong. I want to go to a college that has a good engineering program but not the entire school to be centered around engineering. I know there will be competition wherever I go. I would just rather not be overwhelmed and feel like I really can’t handle it. My big three when looking for college is location, tuition, and academic major. I feel like for the most part I have figured out what to do for these three but none of it won’t really matter until it finally comes.