For reference, I live in Florida, United State.
Nothing of importance occurred until middle school, where middle schoolers were given the opportunity of writing an essay about their struggles living a life with low-income. Unfortunately I wasn't one of the chosen three that were granted quite a nice scholarship. I forgot about it and continued on. During the last two years of high school I finally decided to return to focusing on college. I prepared myself for the last year of high school, when I decided to enter a program called Dual-Enrollment. One college class counted as two high school classes, and at the time we had six classes in high school during the day. So, for the last year, I was taking two high school classes (equivalent to like…. Er, I admit I forgot, but I want to say two hours worth?) whereas I would take two college classes. This gave me a head start in college, albeit I did envy those that began the program a year prior, since they were able to graduate high school with an Associates. However, I did volunteer and take exams to acquire the state's scholarship called Bright Futures, and managed to acquire the highest tier, which pays for 100% of your tuition. Furthermore I was insanely lucky due to the fact that one of the middle school chosen ones (those that wrote the essay about their struggles in a low-income familiy) had apparently lost sight of their future and was sorta failing high school. I was the fourth one, the "back up" in case one of these three would fail, and thus this large scholarship that paid for four years of college (equivalent to 50% of the year's tuition) was handed over to me. Imagine my shock yet happiness in seeing everything fall into place. Not only that, but I won a dozen or so smaller scholarships, all of which allowed me to get a sizable check in the thousands every semester after the tuition was all paid since they were like "ah, guess you can keep the rest of the cash."
Regardless, I graduated high school and immediately threw about into the local college. With a year under my belt, it only took one year to acquire the A.A. Degree. I transferred over to University of South Florida (mainly due to their medicine department) and began my Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences there.
But you see. I guess my mistake was being pushed into believing medicine would be my dream career since it was what I was good at, but not necessarily what I wanted. My original dreams were crushed by my family from a young age and careers as physicians, lawyers, engineers were constantly praised and pushed on to us. So I guess I figured that eventually medicine would grow on me. And it did! Sorta. I really loved learning it, don't get me wrong, but practicing it was a whole different thing. I tried small jobs during all this to dip my toes in this and it only further fueled my fears.
So, once I was a little over halfway with my bachelors degree, I had begun to wobble and doubt my future, something that once upon a time was so solidified. I ended up falling in love, got married, had children, all in the span of this first year of my bachelor's degree. My sudden shift in life, along with my doubt and hesitation to continue my pursuit to be a physician, then led to me dropping out of the university.
I don't plan on returning. For a while I was quite distraught over having wasted my scholarships and years of my life in a degree that would later be a detriment in entering the workforce again. But now it's like… hey, at least I don't have student debt. The scholarships paid for everything, and I'm thankful for that.
