Valencia College Top Questions

Dear Abby, Before you begin reading this letter, I need you to sit down, go get a warm cup of tea and a blanket, and think happy thoughts. Ready? Ok. Life is about to get ridiculously hard. Harder than you can ever imagine, and there's nothing you can do to change it. People are going to try and tell you what you should be doing with your life, where you should go, how you should do it, and a million other things. And they're all going to claim to know what's best for you. The thing is, you are the only one who knows exactly what you need. You will need to remember to take care of yourself in the midst of trails. Don't worry about what others say. You figure it out, and you end up just fine. You'll go to college when you are ready. Don't feel pressure to do things just because others say you should. This includes when you should go to college. Take the time to figure out who you are. Once you know that, everything else will not seem as impossible.

The main piece of advice I would give myself is that time mangement is everything in college. As a senior, it was very easy for me to wait until the last moment to do work. I knew I was capable of getting "A" quality work done at the last minute. However when transitioning to college, I quickly found out that keeping this state of mind would end my journey before it even began. Another piece of advice I would give myself is that no matter what, you need balance and fluidity to survive. Just going with the flow does not work in college, but neither does constantly planning ahead. You need the ability to be fluid in your everyday life in order to make it through semesters. Not balancing social life and school equally can either destroy you or turn you into a hermit. You must be able to balance the two to navigate college life.

If i could go back in timw to tell my high school self what to do I would tell him. That he should have prepared better and studied harder in school so I wouldnt be so far behind. I would also tell myself that I should have taken classes based on my major now I should have made better descions that would have helped me in my current state.

Apply for scholarships way in advance, Student Loans are not something you want to get tangled up with. Find the school that's right for you, not the one that all of your friends are going to. The college for you is in Florida, not Georgia. Take the time to research University of Central Florida and Valencia College before anywhere else.

Kaylee, follow your passion. Go in the direction which God is calling you to go in and don't let outside opinions sway your decision making. Get online and scholarship search until your fingers fall off because you don't have much help and you need all of the help you can get. Please don't get yourself into debt so soon, it's going to create so much more stress on yourself. Also, don't be envious of people that get a little extra help from the government, they need it. Don't be so nonchalant about college. Your education is important and although you don't care about the "prestigious" title that certain colleges may give you, you can at least appreciate the people who do care. Meet new people, people that are different from yourself. It's exciting and challenging and you will gain so many life lessons from people. Good luck, Kaylee. I hope you find what you're looking for.

Even though I love college my kid days are over and things are a little rougher now. However if I could go back and give the senior me advice, I would tell myself to apply to all the scholarships possible, get a job, study harder, and most important of it all not to be afraid. I feel that the biggest obstacle for me when I was a senior in high school was fear. Fear of the what if’s that at the end of the year I never let happened. Fear of not getting a scholarship or if I got a job I wouldn’t give all my focus to school work. Fear of mostly the unknown because I never gave it a chance. Now that I’m in college I know I can do it. I would give myself one last and very specific advice, to not depend much on the one scholarship I worked very hard for. It wasn’t given to me and therefore made things much more complicated. Having a job during high school would have helped a lot with the expenses of helping to pay books, gas, food, car and the list goes on.

Work hard, it's really cliche to say, but work hard. Study for all your classes and actually put an effort because your work counts so much later on. Study for all your AP and IB exams, study hard, because passing the exams will help you so much.

The first thing I would tell myself is, “Congratulations! You are going to graduate high school. The next step is college and it only gets harder, prepare yourself. College is filled with new experiences and a new found freedom, but don’t get distracted! The goal is your degree in electrical engineering. For example, math has always been your favorite subject, but that will all change, it will become a raging bull that if you don’t control… it will knock you down so hard you will be left confused. I say this because college was going great, until I took calculus two. If you don’t study like you have never studied before it will crumble you and make you wish to change your major. I failed calculus two and I don’t want you going through the same thing, your mother will tell you that you have to go on the computer and look for scholarships, one scholarship will tell you to write about what you would tell your past self and I don’t want you to go through that. Study hard and don’t be a procrastinator.’’ That’s what I would tell my senior self.

Why aren't you applying yfor scholarships? Why aren't you applying for more schools? You are smarter than you think and every little bit helps. Don't take light of this new situation and apply yourself more. Push yourself to reach further heights than you ever thought imaginable. It may sound cheesy but "you never know what you're capable of untill you try." Besides preparing yourself for college now and taking it more seriously will be the best thing you could do for your future. It'll help you reach your career goal therefor helping you live a jubilant life. You will have an exceeding amount of self-confidence due to the fact that you accomplished more than you believed you could. Since you applied to more colleges you found out that you could get into a four-year university, since you applied for tons of scholarships you can pay for it too. My advice to my high school senior self is to believe in my self and to push myself to do greater. I'll be surprised by the results and in the end it will pay off more than i could ever know.

Jeremy, when you attend college you will be tempted with new freedoms and a new social atmosphere that you are unfamiliar with. It is very easy to get distracted from the reason you are actually going to college. Do your best to keep your studies your number one priority. Study first and if you have free time after that, then go experience the college social life. The switch from high school to college is definitely a game changer. Nobody is going to hold your hand through your classes and make sure that you are attending or turning in your assignments. It is up to you to succeed. Good luck!