Disqualified

Went to the college yesterday morning to figure out what I wanted to take and if I could pay for it.  First, I talked to the drafting teacher.  My mom has been pushing drafting on me for years.  "With your drawing talent, it would be a great choice for you!  They say they always need people and everyone who graduates gets a job!"  Firstly, drafting doesn't necessarily interest me that much.  It's more about technical drawings than creative ones.  Plus, after talking to the drafting teacher, I realized it definitely wasn't something that interested me.  He started talking about mechanical drawings and fractions and my eyes kind of glazed over as I stared at his salt and pepper goatee.

Secondly, I went to talk to the office administration adviser.  I understood the program to be general office administration with a medical option you could tack on if you wanted.  Well, when I sat with her she said it had changed into entirely medical.  It threw me off a little bit since I realized drafting wasn't for me and so I had my mind set on the office admin.  Then, she randomly asked me if I'd be interested in computer science.  As my eyes glazed over again, I told her I didn't even know what that was.  She then sent me to the computer science adviser who I actually knew.  I went to high school with her daughter.

She then explained what the program entailed and I sort of understood what she was talking about.  I asked her what kind of jobs I could get and she said anything from general office work to IT to networking or something like that.  When she said general office work, I stopped listening.  I mentioned that I was interested in the administration as well and she said that computer science would be a good option because it basically is office administration while going deeper into computers.  She said I'd be more marketable, which is what I wanted to hear!  I decided that would be the best program for me because I could still hopefully find a general office job or I could maybe find something else that has to do with what the program teaches.  She mentioned I'd learn how to write programming in Java and learn basic HTML and that sounded pretty interesting.  I mean, there will always be computers and every company uses computers so I'm sure there will always be a demand for people to be able to fix them and maintain them.

So, I'm feeling pretty good about my decision.  I go to the financial aid office and wait in line for an hour.  All the chairs were taken up so I had to stand the whole time.  My spine started to tingle in the most uncomfortable way.  I shifted my weight from foot to foot every five minutes and glanced at the clock every two.  Maybe only two or three people came in after me so as the line dwindled down, I was finally able to get a chair to sit in.  Two minutes later, I was called in.  Of course.

So, I sit down with the financial aid lady and after an hour of waiting, it took her all of ten seconds to tell me I didn't qualify for a pell grant because of my four year degree.  She said there were a couple of options I could try, such as a technical voucher which is almost like a scholarship and there's another option that's based on my income.  She said those options were probably already used up since it was so late in registration.  She sent me to a lady who gave me a form to fill out.  She also told me it was probably too late to apply this semester but I could try again for next.

I left a little sad, a bit disappointed but overall not entirely upset or anything.  I was excited to go back to school but because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do and if my financial aid would go through, I didn't get my hopes up too much.  Plus, I figured since I had to get up early and wait in that line, I pretty much knew there wouldn't be any good news at the end of that experience.  And maybe I'm at a point where I'm just desensitized to disappointment.  I suppose I could have paid for the semester.  I have been saving up for animation software and equipment but I figured if I could get one of those waivers and go to school for free, that would be the best option 'cause I'd still be able to buy the cintiq and programs to continue with my art.  Plus, I have been looking forward to getting a cintiq for the longest time and all the money I've been saving up has been geared toward that so I think I'll just buy one and then start all over and begin saving for classes, assuming I can't get any financial aid.  Meanwhile, I can still work on my art and animation and heck, if I can manage to throw some stuff together and send it off to companies, I might be interning or working and won't even need to go back to school.  Who knows!

School Nazi says, "No school for you!  Come back, one semester!"