Rae

1) What do you think the strengths and weakness are? 2) What meaning do you get out of the essay? What message do you think I am trying to convey I like the expansion and the focus of the essay. I feel like what makes this even better is the fact that a lot of people can connect to the story. But I feel like you could of emphasized more on your graduation and connect it better to coming to VCU. I feel like you're focusing on two totally different events, when you could've focused on one of them and had a good three pages on it. I think you repeated everything way too much in different words. You need more variety of ideas. All I hear is how you weren't ready, but said in all different ways. Give me more than just that. Also, your grammar is very distracting. Mistakes occur throughout the whole paper. Like the first comment, I think that because you didn't emphasize enough on just the graduation, the introduction of transitioning to VCU seems like a separate story. I think you have a great concept, because readers can connect to the story in some cases. I like your transitions such as, "The bell of the church brings me out of my thoughts and I notice that we are starting to walk to receive our ticket to the real world" to bring the reader in and out of your thoughts. But I feel like in the entire piece you bounce around a lot from one thought to the next with bumpy transitions. I recommend intertwining your thoughts so that they may relate more instead of being seen as separate thoughts or separate events. __ Journey through Change __

I’ve been starring at the white wall of my bedroom ceiling for hours. I turn my head to look at my clock on my phone and it’s 3:15 am. I can’t sleep and I have to get up and do some errands before my graduation. The fact that I am about to graduate High school in a just few hours and then move on to a new journey to college is frightening. I am so used to being around people and places that I know. Even when I graduated middle school, I was devastated at the thought of leaving some of the best friends I ever had. Going into high school was a big change for me. I felt as if I had to start all over again by making new friends and adapting to this new environment. I was not use to the fast paced environment of high school and it made uncomfortable. Over time, it got better and I became accustomed to the busyness of High school. I made so many great friends and shared so many great moments with them. Of course it wasn’t perfect and I made a lot of mistakes, but they only helped shape me into a better person who makes more wise decisions. My family is my support system, especially my mom. She is always there for me whenever I needed her to help with stressful papers that are due to advice on boy issues. So, how am I ready to be on my own and live in a different state, with a completely different environment, people, and places? This was so overwhelming to me and I wanted to cry, but I told myself over and over that I would be fine. I wanted to be strong and accept that change was on its way. I felt like I needed to prove to everyone that I was ready to graduate and go to college, but I really wasn’t. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my friends, and family. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to my home. My door opens and my mom is all smiles as she comes into my room. She sits on my bed and says, “ Are you excited for your big day?” I shrug my shoulders and say “Yeah Kind of”. She says, “It’s going to be great and I’m so proud of you”! I tell her thanks and I start getting ready for my “big day”. _ The sun warms my skin as I get out of the car. I fidget with my cap and gown for a few seconds and then start walking towards the church where my graduation is being held. As we are waiting for the procession to start, one of my friends says, “I can’t believe we are graduating.” I can’t believe it either. My high school years flew by so quickly. Although, through my years in high school, I’ve said “I can’t wait to be done with school and graduate”, but now that I’m here, I wish I had more time in high school. More time to bond with my friends and laugh at inside jokes. More time to just appreciate and savor every moment I had in high school. High school for me, was a place were I could connect with so many people. We all had a bond no matter how different we were. I didn’t like large crowds or big schools, which is why I chose to go to a small high school. It was like a little community, where everyone knew everyone, and it was in my comfort zone. Sometimes I questioned whether I made the right decision to go to a college that has approximately 36,000 students with a huge campus. The bell of the church brings me out of my thoughts and I notice that we are starting to walk to receive our ticket to the real world. As I am walking down the aisle, everyone is watching and I am full of nerves. My eyes search to find my family, for encouragement and reassurance. Most of my classmates around me seem so excited and ready to go, but I wonder why I don’t I feel that way. One of my classmates, who sitting next to me leans over and whispers to me “I’m so ready to be in college.” I smiled weakly and said “yeah”, but I didn’t know what else to say to that because I didn’t feel the same way. I wasn’t ready to be in this foreign place called college. It wasn’t home to me and I would be starting all over again like I did from middle school to high school and now to college. My routine of going home after school and being with my family would be lost. I would have to develop a new routine when I got to college. I figured after I actually graduated and received my diploma, I would feel the same excitement towards college as my classmate that whispered to me. I didn’t. __ It’s my first day at Virginia Commonwealth University and I can’t believe that I am actually a college student. After my mom and family help me finish unpacking, they all say their goodbyes. My mom pulled me in close and said, “This is going to be a great experience and you can come home anytime you want to visit.” Being here by myself was so overwhelming, I wouldn’t have those special things like, eating dinner with my family every night, watching TV shows with my mom, or just being in my favorite room, but they will always be there for me to go back too. I can make new special times and routines that helped me adjust in college, just like I did in middle and high school. I realized that I shouldn’t look at change as starting all over again. However, I should look at it as an opportunity of personal growth and development. If I didn’t come to Virginia Commonwealth, than how would I change? How would I grow? I wouldn’t because I would never grow from being in the same place and doing the same routine every day. Life is all about change and it’s about having a positive outlook on how change can affect your life. I came to the conclusion that there will be hard days and it will take time getting use to this new environment, but it will eventually get better. I now look forward to what college may bring and how it will help me grow mentally, physically, and emotionally.