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Luwam Sehaye

Dr. Rieman

English 1103

18 October, 2010

Choices

Ending up UNCC started off as an elimination process for me. I laid out all the colleges I

got accepted to out and scratched off schools until I was left with two. One was UNC Charlotte

and the other was Pennstate University. I had visited both schools and loved the campuses, and

also had done some thorough research on the academic programs, financial aid, tuition,

extracurricular activities, and so on. I was so indecisive I didn’t know what to do, there were so

many great things about Pennstate and there were also many great things about UNCC. For

example, I loved that Pennstate was a really big school but still a college town, I have family that

attend school there, and they offered a major in bio-behavioral health. When I came to UNCC I

liked that there was a big campus, hundreds of organizations, clubs, and activities, and that

learning communities were offered. As weeks passed by, I still hadn’t made my decision and I

didn’t want to because so many people were telling where I should go and which school was

better, I didn’t know which one to choose. Finally a friend of mine told me to write out a list of

pros and cons and whichever school had the most pros to go for and if I wasn’t happy with which

school that came up then I probably really wanted to go to the other school. Overall the point

was to choose the school that was best for me. The next day, I followed her instructions exactly

and was happy to find that UNCC came out the winner.

Now when I look back on my senior year of high school, it was weird spending so much

time and getting stressed out making this one decision now that I am actually here. Last year was
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definitely the most stressful year of my life trying to meet deadlines, writing college essays, the

SAT’s and top of that keeping up with my actual school work. How I got up to this point took so

much of my effort starting from the eighth grade I have felt like life is made up of a bunch of

tests trying to prove yourself worthy of something. I had to work hard to get into a selective

private high school, and I had to work even harder to get into a good college. That meant

countless nights of no sleep, studying all day and night, endless papers, and of course a mental

breakdown. I remember one day of my senior year, had two major exams and my final research

paper due on the same day. I had to do well on all three into order to graduate. I walked into my

second exam feeling confident, sat down and blanked. I could not believe after studying as hard

as did I could barely answer half of the questions and the left exam room angry in tears. I felt

like my whole world was over and that everything I worked for was for nothing. The next week,

as I was trying to mentally prepare myself for spending the next two months in summer school, I

was told that only one person passed the exam and retakes were going to be scheduled. I passed

the retake feeling on top of the world again, and graduated with the amazing class of 2010.

I am not going to lie though, I slacked a lot! Sometimes I just made it by in a class, which

I am not proud of at all. If it wasn’t for my parents who kept pushing me, God, and my dedicated

teachers I might not have made it this far. My driving force also came from me wanting a better

future for myself and my family, and to accomplish that I would need a college that would best

fit my needs. Thinking about the other pathways I could have taken are only other universities

because not going to college was neither an option nor a want for myself. However I still do

wonder sometimes if I should have chosen to attend Penn State, how have it would have been

different, and if would I be happier. Either way I am satisfied with my decision right now and

hope to make the most of my time here at UNCC.

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