West Valley College Top Questions

I wish that before I started at West Valley College that I knew more about all the scholarship programs and financial help opportunities that are offered at the school in order to help student continue and succeed in College. I did not find out about all of these programs until at least 6 months into school. Since then I have been getting financial aid which has helped a lot, but I know that there are still more programs out there to learn about that would help me even more.

I wish I had known that I should buy only the required textbooks and wait and decide on the recommended ones. I would have saved more money. I wish I'd known the importance of making as many acquaintances as possible, because lunch breaks are lonely without someone to eat with, and strangers at the school aren't friendly to newcomers like my peers were back in Los Angeles. And I wish I'd known how bad my oak tree allergies were. It;s a beautiful campus, but all those trees make me sneeze (ooh, rhyming).

Before coming to West Valley, I wish that I knew how to be more confident in my college choice. After all, it doesn't matter what college one attends but how one chooses to obtain an education with academic integrity, ambition, and inspiration. In high school, I would have thought that community college was a setback, but now as a student at community college, I find community college as a rewarding experience. Attention to student's education goals and needs, community colleges provide students with more flexibility and affordability that a freshman at a university may not receive.

This is my second time going to school. I am now going back to school in a completely different field. I wish someone had told me from the begining to choose something that I really cared about and that interested me instead of choosing something that I thought would make a lot of money and that people would be impressed with. Follow your heart.