I recently found a list of goals that I had written 20 years ago. Most of the goals were realistic and I was able to achieve them. While I was checking the items off my list that I accomplished, there was one that I have debated about for many years—returning to school to earn a degree. Returning to school has always been achievable; however, as each year of my life sped by and I got older, I always came up with more and more excuses as to why I should not return to school. One day I received a course catalog in the mail showing online classes at the college. I decide that an online class would be the first step to my future. I am so grateful for the first day of that class. All the excuses and delays regarding returning to school …show more content…

The pressure of academic greatest is what is heard around campus for the four years of attendance. The first day of high school, the dean of girls had an assembly in the gym and described the importance of good behavior, good community and stressed how important it is to achieve the highest grades possible if you want to have a great future. This was stressed each and every year for 4 years. Each year, the pressure to get the highest mark in the class was huge because when we applied for college at the beginning of our senior year, colleges were only gong to accept the girls with the highest marks. This pressure was very overwhelming to me. I again was home on the weekends studying and trying to be in the top of my class academically. Unfornaturely, due to my reading disability, the college I applied for did not accept me as a student. My parents were devastasted. Still today, I have live with this guilt that I let my parents down. My experience as a child in grammar and high school were not pleasant so after I graduated from high school—with no honors or awards—I did not attend college. I decided I did not need another four years of torment.
Many years after high school graduation, I was married and had two beautiful children. I encouraged them both in school by helping with homework, reading to them and participated in the classroom as a room mother. My children loved school and both achieved high