What I'm Most Thankful For by Presley

What I'm Most Thankful For by Presley - November 2016 Scholarship Essay

When I first got to Iowa Central, I was terrified. For the first time I was living away from my family, and I would have to embrace a whole new life that I felt completely unprepared for. I would be living with four other girls, a hard adjustment for me when I have been mostly raised as an only child. For the first month I wanted nothing more than to return home and turn back time back to high school. I wasn't making friends, my roommates and I did not talk, and I realized how much I did not learn in high school that college expected you to know. I would call home sobbing because I was homesick and desperate. However, slowly it got better. I joined a Human Services club and met friends, my roommates and I talk regularly, and I have all A's and one B. It took a while for me to realize that experiences will not just come to me, I have to go out and make them for my own. The reason I was so miserable is because I refused to move on from my old life, I could not live the way I was used to. College helped me with that.
Because of college I was forced out of my comfortable shell and I have no plans to return to that shell. I am thankful that college has given me the confidence to be able to talk to new people. The staff here at Iowa Central is so welcoming and friendly that it is hard not to fall in love with being here. I am thankful for college because I have grown into a new person, one that is confident and prepared.