Letter to Eight Grader

Dear Student,

I remember when I was in eighth grade all I wanted to do was see my friends in school and socialize. The music that was in at that time was Backstreet Boys, N’sync and Britney Spears! Yes, Britney Spears was in, they played her music all over the radio and her videos were always on the top ten, MTV’s TRL with Carson Daily. You are probably thinking by now “gosh how old is this girl!?” that was like ten years ago, right. Well I am twenty four years old my name is Veronica, I am Mexican-American. I work part-time and I attend East Los Angeles Community College, I am a full-time student, my major is Political Science, I would like to one day work for Homeland Security or Immigration.

When I got out of high school I enrolled into a junior college right away, I didn’t really want to but I did it to please my parents. As the first year went by I lost interest in school. I just felt I was not ready for college, I knew I wanted to study and earn a degree from a four year university but at that time I just found myself lost. I stopped going to college for about three years and finally I am back on my feet. I am very happy to be back at school, sometimes when younger people like yourself think of college they might think it’s boring and not cool. However, college is the opposite of boring, at most junior colleges and four year universities they have a gym, a pool, and they even have an arcade room for the students where they can play video games, shoot pool and play darts. Also in college you can join different clubs and even a sports team. For most sporting events you will get to travel and go to different states to play against other schools and if you are lucky enough you might get the chance to go play to Hawaii. In my Chicano class I have learned that only a small percentage of Chicanos graduate from college but students like you and I can change that. If more people like “us” were to attend college we could prove to the world that our Hispanic community is as good as any other community.
College is definitely what I expected it to be, fun and educating at the same time. I have learned many things in college from the classes I have taken and at the same time I am having a lot of fun. I am in the philosophy club and we plan to go on fieldtrips for the rest of the school year, we are also going to be joining community events. There have been some challenges I have faced in school but I consider them to be minor. Due to the fact that there are so many students in my school sometimes there are too many students in one classroom, or sometimes you cannot find parking but overall I have had great experiences. I have made new friends and met new interesting people. I hope that when I finally get my bachelors degree I will be able to find a job where I can interact with people and help them. Once I know what government office I would like to work for, I plan on going back to school and earning a master’s degree. With a master’s degree I will be able to get a stable job for the rest of my life and not to mention I will be making enough money to be able to go on vacations and travel the world.

I just want you to remember that going to school, not only high school but going to college can guarantee you to have a better life than the one you have today. By going to college you can change your life and the lives of those around you; you can travel and explore the world. Just think of somewhere in the world where you would like to visit or something you would like to do, well you can go there all you have to do to achieve it is go to college. It is that easy. Just remember that when someone tells you “no you cant” I tell you “yes you can.”