Friday, August 17, 2012

Dropped Classes and Scholarships

During my last summer session, I had been taking an SAT math prep course and Western Civilization I in the morning, and College Algebra and Trigonometry at night.  I soon realized that taking classes in the morning and at night was too much for me.  I dropped the SAT prep course and Western Civilization class.  I also had a morning/night schedule for the fall.  I dropped my fall nighttime class of Physics.  It will now take me a little bit longer to graduate, but I have to know my limits.  Too bad the classes weren't just scheduled back to back.  Then I think I could have done it.  I got an A in my math class.  If I had stuck with my original schedule, I don't think I could have done it.  So now I have a 3.91 GPA.  Never again a 4.0 thanks to that rotten math teacher that I had for my first summer session.

Well, I won a scholarship through the school, and I'm kind of disappointed.  Last year I won a total of $560 worth of scholarships which was just credited to my account.  This year I won a $250 book voucher.  I had thought for sure with a whole year of nearly straight A's I would have won more this year.  There were a lot of good scholarships available--up to $5,000.  I guess I should be grateful that I won anything at all.  It could have been worse.  The real disappointment was that I thought of this scholarship competition as a precursor to the big scholarship competition the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship competition.  The essay that I submitted was one that I specifically had written with the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship in mind.  If my essay wasn't good enough to garner a larger scholarship, then would it be good enough for the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship?  Maybe I have to go back to the drawing board and come up with something new entirely.  Students cannot apply directly for the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship, you have to be nominated by your school.  So the first order of business is convincing the school to nominate me.  Wish me luck.