This was in another blog, but it ended up getting really long so I thought I'd make this a blog of it's own and just link it back to the original. More or less, I haven't gone back to school due to what my school has been doing these past few months... I was originally happy there, but now I'm dreading to go back and get my education from this particular institute.
What I never mentioned was how college went my second semester (Jan - May 2017). During that semester, I dropped two classes of five classes for my mental sanity, but in the end, I ended up failing two and passing one because I had taken that one in high school as a "dual-enrolled student" and my credit didn't transfer because I did it through another community college. Because of my GPA being so low, I lost a scholarship that I busted my butt to get... The highest, most paying scholarship that my community college offers.
I wasn't even supposed to get that scholarship, but I did because of a loophole. I was an out-of-county student due to where my dad worked, and due to me being out-of-county, I couldn't apply for the "free" option that my high school offered to students going to the community college I was formerly "dual-enrolled" in. Due to my community college having an adviser at my high school though, she heard about my story and pulled a few strings only to find out about the loophole in the scholarship requirements. The scholarship was for students who graduated from three school systems in the area... and I happened to live in one of those three, but I didn't graduate from that school. The scholarship covered up to 15 credits (I usually took 12) and I had my federal financial aid to pay for books.
So, when my GPA dropped, I lost my scholarship and I'm currently on academic probation for my federal aid. If I mess up another college semester, I lose my federal aid, and I really, really don't need that.
So in August, my boyfriend was getting out of rehab, I was jobless, and I was moving. That was a lot of things at once and to top it all, my mental health was getting pretty bad which is what caused me to give up during my second semester... So I ended up taking the fall semester off.
Since then, I've been doing a lot better as I have less stuff to worry about, but there's just something about the college that has began to rub me the wrong way in the past few months that I'm going to explain.
Evidence One: The Lack of Care for My Mental State
I had proof that I was mentally ill. I had proof that my illness had been acting up in the last few months of my second semester and it would have explained why my grades plummeted. I went to their "student support services" and that's when they told me to drop two classes and see how it went. I said in contact with the man over SSS and he more or less said "too bad" when I lost my scholarship. He said I didn't try hard enough and I was very, very upset.
I told my scholarship adviser what happened and that I had proof of what was going on, and she also turned me away. She was the one who sent me the letter saying I lost the scholarship. I'm still upset.
Evidence Two: A $5 Million Renovation
Kevin (my boyfriend) and his father work for a construction company... and that company recently finished a building that the college owns. The building is the school's motor sports building that they threw $5 mill into to renovate. Now, the college is in the same county as a major Nascar speedway in the country, but motor sports is not something many people go into. I suppose they were hoping that the renovation would make it a more popular program at school, but it's not even on the main campus... It's two miles down the road.
Main campus on the other hand is overcrowded and falling apart. The newest building is where most of the professors' offices and kind of the "student hang-out" center is. There's no classes in that building; just a cafeteria, and the major offices that students go to when they register. Why throw $5 mill in an unpopular building?
Evidence Three: A Scholarship
As mentioned earlier, my former scholarship covered three school systems. As of two days ago, the college created another scholarship... one that is very, very similar to the "free" one that my high school offered.
A well known fact is I live in Virginia... I'm originally from Patrick County, and currently live in the city of Martinsville, which is located in Henry County. My community college is Patrick Henry - get it, Patrick County, Henry County, famous person. I'm sharing this to prove this point.
Now, PH announced that they're creating a new scholarship that only requires a student to be enrolled in PH, complete 8 hours of community service, and fill out for their financial aid... Oh wait... I'm missing another requirement... You have to be a graduate of any of the schools in Martinsville City or Henry County. Notice there's two.
Patrick County isn't covered under this scholarship even though the school has a facility in Patrick County and Patrick County has no "free" options whatsoever. Apparently, Patrick County isn't a part of their "service area" when the next closest community college next to PH is over an hour away... I mean, PH is a 25 min drive to the Patrick County line.
So, one little damn loophole I could have fit into because I was a former resident of Patrick County during the year of my high school graduation, I cannot apply for.
So, that has caused me to make the decision to further putting my college education on hiatus because one, I'm unhappy there, and two, they don't care about the students... they care about money. Besides that, I will be moving away from my current residence possibly in April so Kevin and I can get our own place together in his hometown. There's a community college there since it's in a different city and they have more options, degree-wise, and I'd like to find something there since at PH I'm just doing my general stuff and I really don't want my Associate's in that.
My dad is going to kill me over this decision, but I'm just going to have to suck it up and deal with the consequences. There's no reason in going if I'm not going to put an effort into it.
Kayla V
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