As a Lake Sumter State College (LSSC) student who decided to take only 2-3 classes a semester, which resulted in me being at a 2-year college for 3 years. There’s a lot of things I learned with the extra year, such as losing friends, gaining friends, dealing with the struggles of paying for my classes, growing up and learning about myself and figuring out what I want to do with my life.

         I am a first-generation American college student and I did not realize this until my second year at LSSC when a new club started called First Generation Club. I didn’t have the opportunity to join the club, but speaking with them at the Welcome Back Bash was insightful. I had no idea there were scholarships for being a first generation student so I didn’t get the chance to take advantage of that opportunity. Truthfully, when my FAFSA got rejected and I wasn’t eligible for scholarships, I gave up. I never renewed my FAFSA because I thought, “what’s the point, they will only offer me loans.” I wasn’t motivated to do research on it either, which means I didn’t learn about it until it was too late. I was too anxious to just write about myself to get awarded foundations scholarship because I didn’t think I was interesting enough. That’s funny to think about since I’ve been writing  for The Angler and was elected the Editor-in-Chief. Life is interesting like that because you never know what can happen.

         My friendship with my best friend for 7 years ended in our first semester of college. We became friends in the choir class in our middle school and stayed friends all throughout high school. Being friends with them taught me a lot about myself but mainly, I put up with too many shenanigans. For my public speaking class, I wrote a speech on how resilient my friends are as they went through a lot in life. My professor was concerned about me writing and speaking on someone’s personal business, so I made sure to gain permission. After weeks of making sure it was ok, I finally presented the speech which ultimately made us decide to no longer be friends. My friend said they did not know I was doing anything, and felt uncomfortable with what I did, but when I was confronted by them with the concerns, I was forgiven at that moment. Afterwards, they ran off to our other friends and told a different story which made me decide we can’t stay friends. Since they didn’t feel like they could be honest with me. This was a hard thing to cope with as we were fresh out of  high school and had no idea what we were doing. Thankfully, that same public speaking professor told me about the school newspaper which helped me create a new community to strive for.

         The Angler was the best thing to happen to me. I gained friends instantly and had a community to grow in. I originally chose to be a photographer and was taking pictures at events alongside managing our social media accounts. Not long after I started writing for The Angler, I created a safe place for myself. The Angler was a sizable club when I joined but almost everyone graduated soon after and the club was only myself and two other students. It was a rocky year trying to build the school newspaper and to get people interested in it, but we gained a member that was amazing at networking and helped me grow the club exponentially. The club had hit the point of being shut down since we had gone almost two years without growth, but something clicked and the club started to buckle down. The website has got redesigned, we have gotten many new members, and the school newspaper is thriving. I am so thankful to The Angler and the professor who urged me to join because without all their guidance, I wouldn’t be who I am today.

         Earlier in the article, I mentioned that I wasn’t eligible for FAFSA and didn’t take advantage of The Foundation’s scholarship, so you might be wondering how I paid for classes. I paid straight out of pocket. I started working after COVID restrictions were lifted when I was 17. When I turned 18, I started putting money into savings, knowing I would need money for school. The jobs I worked gave me decent hours that I was able to put at least 200-300 dollars into savings a month. Alongside that, when I joined The Angler, there was an opportunity for scholarship money that I was able to earn and put back towards classes. Due to the fact that I was paying out of pocket, more than 2-3 classes a semester were out of budget. I also know myself well enough to know if I took more classes than that, I would not be able to pass them all with As and Bs. I feel like paying for my classes out of pocket also motivated me to do my best in my classes because I knew it would be hard to afford to pay for a class again. There was a struggle being a part time employee and part time student as there were things lost. For example, my dad is a Disney employee and when I decided to be a part time student, he lost a park ticket. That’s not a big deal but my dad is a kind soul, and he loves taking my family to Disney, so losing that extra ticket made it hard for him to give his tickets out. Another struggle was work, school, and life balance. I wanted to hang out with my friends but needed to schedule out the time to do so as well as my job tried to overwork me which made me prioritize work over school which you should never do. Since I needed work to go to school, I would put school on the backburner which led to a lot of anxieties. Because of this, I learned my anxiety is more than just being worried and nervous but a part of me that made it hard to function. However, once I figured it out, I started looking into things to combat it. I still haven’t found my foolproof way, but it’ll happen in time.

         I want to touch on how growing up and learning about myself at LSSC helped me figure out what I want to do with my life. I started attending LSSC at 18 and will be graduating at 22, and what I wanted to do when I walked onto that campus to now is slightly different. I walked onto campus wanting to major in Journalism but recently learned that Marketing is more my field. Our brains are still developing until the age of 25 and I know so much about me changed from 18 to 22, and that’s because my brain developed more over those 4 years. The school newspaper gave me the opportunity to be the social media manager which led me to enjoy advertising the club. Alongside that I was an intern with the League of Women Voters as their social media manager which solidified me wanting to be something in that field even more. There is a journalism conference The Angler has the opportunity to go to every fall and the most recent one, the 66th annual Florida College System Publications Association (FCSPA), taught me that marketing goes hand in hand with journalism. The conference also taught me that I need to take every opportunity bestowed upon me. So, I decided to take some of my small passions and turn them into a future side hustle. Due to the fact that I put school on the backburner this semester, I hurt my chance to transfer to UCF for the spring semester so instead I will be working towards an Estheticians license in the spring alongside another class at LSSC to keep myself busy.

I am grateful to have had the opportunities that were blessed upon me, and I hope whoever reads this takes something away from this. I urge you to join clubs that interest you, LSSC has many clubs and I’m sure you can find one or two that you enjoy. I also highly recommend networking, simply talk to the classmates around you or reach out to the students in your discussion boards. You never know who you will meet and who could become a new friend. LSSC is full of opportunities and you need to take them when you see them because you never know where life will take you as a LakeHawk.

There is always so much to learn at LSSC or any state college and the best thing to do is join a club or two. It is important to network and get out of your shell. Talk to people in your classes, go to school events and throw yourself into the crowd. You never know what you will learn and take away from these experiences. I am so grateful for the opportunities bestowed upon me and I know any LSSC has the same chances to be blessed with all sorts of knowledge, inside and outside the classroom.