CHESSNOID

I went to Woodbury University and graduated with 2 BS degrees in finance and marketing. At the time, I went to school because my parents ingrained in me and my siblings that it is the most important thing to achieve and once you got it you would be set for any challenges in life. No matter what you did in life, you could always fall back on your education is what my dad would always say. I do find that to be true in my life. I am thankful that my parents paid my way to college. It is kind of a Filipino cultural way of life. All my siblings (1 brother and 3 sisters) have their degrees, and I knew that before my father passed away that made him happy. I think all the kids struggled to get their degrees with the exception of the youngest sister. She seemed to get through college without any problems. When I went to college the first time around, I was 16 years old. I passed the California equivalency examination and I was happy. I never really liked high school, so I figured if I could start college at 16 I could be finished by 20 instead of 22. You have to admit, that seems practical.

With barely a driver’s license in my hand, I attended Long Beach city college. I signed up for 6 semester classes full-time. The first day of school, I arrived 30 minutes early but couldn’t find a parking space. So I was late to my first class. Ouch! At the time, I was very self conscious about my appearance, so I hated that everyone stared at me when I walked in late. Then the classes would be booked and you would have to petition to get into class. My direction was headed for disaster. As a kid, I just didn’t understand why would they overbook these classes when there were no more available spaces or chairs to sit in. The rest of the day went smoothly and I was able to walk to all my classes on time for the rest of the day. Day 2 when I went to the bookstore to buy my books, they ran out. Yes, they run out of books for the classes you take just like the chairs in the classroom. How silly is it to not have enough chairs for the students to sit in. Anyways, this was in 1983, so I couldn’t just log onto the Internet… www.amazon.com… and have my textbooks expedited to me. This was pre-Internet, so I called the local bookstores like all the other students and was basically out of luck. What to do?!

I just continued to go to class and jot down everything the professors lectured about. They were aware of the book situation, but really didn’t care. They basically said the books were back-ordered, and would be in 2-3 weeks. Funny thing back then, I think my tuition was $5 a class for a total of $30 for the semester. The books were all about $25 each for a total of $150. That all seemed so expensive at the time. Today I know that would have been dirt cheap. The prices for tuition and books have skyrocketed faster than the prices of real estate or new cars.

Eventually, the books did come in about a month into the semester. I was basically 4 weeks behind in every class. I lost motivation and honestly was overwhelmed with the whole experience. I couldn’t learn everything I needed to and actually catch up. My first college experience just spiraled into missing classes, becoming unmotivated, and eventually dropping out altogether. I went back to high school since I was under 18 and they just took me back.

All of a sudden, I had a new appreciation for high school. It wasn’t as bad as it used to be. I made more friends and excelled in all my classes. I was again a big fish in a little pool. I graduated 8th in a class of 430 students. Or was it 340 students? Either way, I graduated from high school in June of 1985 and would get a second chance at college.

I considered going to Cal State Long Beach, UC Santa Barbara, and Woodbury University in downtown Los Angeles. Cal State Long Beach because it was the cheapest of the bunch. UC Santa Barbara because it was such a beautiful looking campus. Woodbury University because the college recruiter sold me on its teacher to student ratio of about 1 professor to 10 students. That is what I felt I needed to succeed in school. When I went to visit their campus, that was the deal maker. It was in downtown LA with only about 1000 students. Everything the recruiter said was true. The classes had more chairs than students. The students in the classroom looked happy. My decision was made.

Cal State would be the cheapest for about $2500 a year. UCSB the most expensive at about $8,000 a year. And Woodbury in the middle for about $5500 a year. I was lucky and had all my tuition paid by grants, scholarships, loans, and a work study part time job on campus. My parents would just have to spring for the books. Sweet! I was to begin school in the fall of 1985 and gearing up for the challenge.

First 3 quarters I aced all my classes. 4 classes a quarter and 12 A’s. Yippee. That is the way I wished my college experience to be. When I applied for my tuition assistance program for the 2nd year, it wasn’t as generous. President Reagan had cut a bunch of school programs which affected me. So I didn’t qualify for any grants like the previous year. This didn’t look good from where I was sitting. My parents were already making a sacrifice by putting all their kids through college and I really wanted to graduate at Woodbury. I took drastic action. I went back to community college to take my general education classes there to save money. It was actually fun. I went to Cerritos college during summer school. Passed all my classes and they were all transferable to my degree program. During my second year, I had the idea to go to Cerritos college full time and Woodbury University full time simultaneously. I had to get a special sign off from my college counselor, but because of my first year’s good grades I was approved to attend both schools concurrently.

I took a full load of semester classes at Cerritos college and a full load of quarter classes at Woodbury University. I passed all my classes. I continued at that pace until I graduated with 2 degrees. I finished my 4 year degree programs in 2 1/2 years and saved a lot of tuition money. I even graduated with cum laud honors and a GPA of 3.6. I had barely turned 21 in April and graduated in June and I don’t even think my father believed it until he saw me at the graduation ceremony. After that my father offered me to pay for my MBA, but I had just burnt myself out. Looking back on it, I wish I went. But who knows, it is never too late to go back to school. I did it after I failed miserably the first time. Sometimes success is born from failures. I believe that was the case for me.

On a side not, I really do wonder how kids are able to go to school now. With tuition ranging from $15,000-$40,000 a year it seems ridiculous. You would think the universities would be half empty, but they are actually still overloaded. Maybe school is just big business. We’ll save that chat for another time.