DIFFICULTIES & STRATEGIES= STRUGGLE

What issues do you face that make thriving in college difficult for you? 

College becomes difficult, when work, family/friends and a social life all intertwine with one another. In life difficulties are dealt with everyday for myself the difficulties I face on a daily basis is getting up early to go to work to provide for myself and my mother who has been a single parent to my siblings and I all my life, now she is my responsibility for which I work very hard for as she did for me when I was younger. 

Due to an accident she had at her previous employer she was not able to return to work as she had disc degeneration/herniation in her spine/back.  Besides having to work in the city of Oakland and dealing with the environment itself my job position, as a Quality Analyst & Accounts Receivable Administrator is a very high demanding and a big responsibility to carry. Which my responsibilities are: to review, edit, correct and type up medical orthopedic reports, as well as bill agencies/attorney’s/insurance companies & patients themselves. That is already a big stressful responsibility for which I am very proud to have as I began as a temporary filing clerk and later began to help out in each department till I got a higher position without having any prior technical training or certification my work speaks for itself for I now run my department. 

While having to deal with school and work at the same time I have issues everyday as I take away my own privilege of having a real lunch during work for I turn my lunch time into study and homework time, when I don’t take a lunch I leave work early to finish school work or run errands I do not have time to do for my household or take my mother to doctors appointments as my time is very limited.

Work and school already take up most of my time, yet there is my boyfriend and family whom I barley have time to spend with. The most difficult thing is to spend time with my boyfriend, my family and my friends as the few hours I have to spend is to do school work and sleep instead of being able to spend time with my loved ones. I think the biggest obstacle is to give up precious time on school in order to have a higher education and a better career to benefit my self, my family and one day my future kids. 

All in all the obstacles I face in my life in order to succeed is giving up time with my loved ones, limited time in my daily life and the biggest responsibility of all is being the head of my house hold while being a spouse to my boyfriend and having dinner ready every night while rushing to pull all nighter’s to better my future. 

The last year to me the biggest difficulty I’ve had to deal with is the death of my father, my past has been something I carry, for which my mother was on her own most of my life and I’ve had to live with poverty, hard work, hunger at times when I was younger the struggle of survival has been the biggest difficulty in my life that up to present day still affect my life today and for I am living proof of how hard it has been to push forward for myself and my family.

What strategies do you have for dealing with these potential deal breakers?

I think the strategies I can enforce within my difficulties is spending the little time I have with the people that matter most in my life. Many of us take life for granted and even though we may not have that much time each day, we can take some time out of our busy day to play with our phones and laptops so we should all be able to call each other, text, or even do web-camera calls. Even if we may not be able to interact on a daily basis with our loved ones a simple message or hello or smile can go a long way. For me a big strategy is to embrace what I have and how far I’ve come and look onto my past as its what’s gotten me this far and that helps me have more courage to keep pushing forward as all my hard work will eventually pay off and I will one day be rewarded for all the sacrifices I’ve given up.