Importance of Scholarships

Scholarships are extremely important fro paying for college, but they also have other purposes which stress their importance even more. Scholarships are vital to the survival of a new college student and many students who don't take advantage of scholarships remain in debt for an extended period of time as a result of student loans. Student loans, though they seem good at the time, can have drastic effects on a college student's life and can cause them to spend a large portion of their life paying money simply for a loan that seemed insignificant. Scholarships, however, can greatly reduce the initial cost of college and even though scholarships may not seem very helpful, reducing a student loan as much as possible can greatly reduce the time required to pay it off. Scholarships also give a person a sense of worth for their talents and characteristics. There are scholarships out there for basically every talent or characteristic a person could have, which can help bring out a person's individuality. Scholarships not only provide a useful method of earning money for college tuition, they also show a person how important they really are through their traits and talents.

United States Education System vs. Icelandic Education System

The Icelandic and United States educational systems have many similarities and differences, though it is difficult to decide whether one is better than the other. First of all, the mandatory Icelandic school system ends at the age of 16, as do many European nations, while the United States' ends at the age of 18. Iceland end its public education system so early because it gives the students the opportunity to immediately start on their degree so that they can begin their career as soon as possible. This seems appealing, though so does the United States system, which gives students more time to discover what they want to pursue in life. One definite advantage Iceland has over America is the fact they focus quite a bit more of government money for the public school system.

Reflection

I learned that I need to do quite a bit more than I expected before college after completing the assignment. First of all, I learned that I need to take my ACT for a second time, but with the writing portion this time. I took my ACT already, but I didn't take the writing portion, and one of the colleges that I am interested in requires prospective students to take the writing portion. Second, after discussing my situation with the councilors, I learned that I need to actually visit the colleges that I am interested in before applying. Mrs. Shull told me that meeting with the college councilors before actually applying is very important, especially because I am still not entirely sure where I want to go. Second, I realize that working hard now to improve my GPA and class rank will have many benefits in the near future. I learned that I also need to have enough volunteer hours and extracurricular activities in order to get into the colleges that I am looking at. Thankfully, I also learned that I will have taken the required classes for all three of my colleges by the end of my senior year in high school. This assignment helped me very much and I now am very serious about achieving a good score on my second ACT as well as getting in touch with my college councilors.

College Degree Worth

For me, a college degree is definitely worth the time and money it takes to earn, though it highly depends on the person. I want to enter the medical field, which requires a bit more schooling than usual, but I know that it will be worth it in the future. It is quite easy to succeed in the medical field once one earns a degree because they are difficult degrees to earn overall. Nevertheless, they are very expensive to earn. Still, the average salary in the medical field is quite high, so being able to pay off the degree shouldn't be extremely difficult if one is able to succeed. I also believe that people who pursue a medical career achieve a form of social respect as well because they have endured longer periods of college than the average person with a bachelors degree. However, if one cannot find a well paying job with a medical degree, that person can be left with a job unrelated to their degree as well as high levels of debt. This can easily apply to others who don't enter the medical field as well. There are many degrees that people earn every day that are completely irrelevant to their career. There are also many career fields that have a very small window of success, such as music or theater. Nevertheless, this is one of the main reason why high school students should take their education seriously. If a high school student can earn enough scholarships to cut down their college tuition by at least half, that would greatly lower their future debt after college and could increase their chances of finding success. People who don't have to worry about having large levels of debt can spend their money on other things to help them gain success rather than just trying to pay off the debt that earned them their degree. Yet, I still believe that many people could find more success in their life, both social and economical, by having a college degree.

Spring Break

My Spring Break was somewhat uneventful. First I missed the Friday before Spring Break because of a baseball tournament in Glen Rose. Friday night, I went with my brother and Kolton's family to Cleburne State Park for their annual camping trip. Jonathon has gone every year on Spring Break but this was my first time camping with the Schmidts. Saturday we came back to Glen Rose to finish off the baseball tourney (unfortunately, we lost), but instead of going back to camp, I went home with my mom because I had previously committed to working at my church on Sunday morning and afternoon. I had a lot of fun on Sunday morning as well as at my church's first ever worship night that evening. Afterward, my mom drove me all the way out to Cleburne to stay with Jonathon and Kolton again until Tuesday. While camping, we rode bikes, hiked, skipped rocks on the river, and many other activities that I enjoyed greatly. We returned home on Tuesday around noon where I went home and took a very long nap. On Wednesday, I had to be at my church at 8 in the morning to help our Assistant Pastor with our new sanctuary. Our church's new sanctuary is being constructed presently and my Pastor wanted to know if I would help him out. When I arrived, I helped take out the trash, install light bulbs, etc., but the majority of my day was spent sweeping. I swept the new sanctuary until about 3:00 when my grandmother picked me up and my Pastor decided to pay me for my work that day (which was a pleasant surprise). I went home and expertly procrastinated from working on my English project which was due the following week. Then, on Thursday, I had to be at the school at 5:30 for another baseball tournament in the middle of nowhere. We drove home that night, even though we had to be at the school at 6:00 the next morning to leave again. Nevertheless, when we arrived at the site of the tournament, it started to rain so we had to drive all the way home in a desperate attempt to get home before wasting the entire morning. I arrived home in the afternoon and began to procrastinate again for the rest of the day (Netflix is the devil). On Saturday morning, I attended the business expo in Midlothian at 8:30 that morning because I am in a youth leadership organization called DeMolay and we had a booth. After I returned home from that, I finally began to work on my English project, event though I accomplished very little. Sunday morning was exciting because I did not have to work in the sound booth at church so I was able to sleep in. I slept in until 10:30 when I got ready and drove to church for second service. Finally, after that, I returned home and started to work on my homework once again.