First of all, I need to confess something to you; I really like knowing exactly what is coming up next in my life. I absolutely can’t stand carnival rides, least of all rollercoaster’s. So I have no idea where to begin to tell you about the rollercoaster ride that was Highline Community College for me. I guess I’ll give you a little bit of history before I tell you about all of the ups, downs, twists, and turns.

I finished high school in 1999 and I went directly to the University (the way that you are “supposed” to). Well, guess what? I wasn’t ready and at the end of the 1999-2000 school year I was given my walking papers; I had to fend for myself. Luckily, I found a job; then, I came back to school at Highline Community College in the fall of 2003.

At first I went part time, very cautious about my extracurricular activities because when I went to college the first time I believed that they led to my academic demise. After a quarter though, I felt much better about school and began going full time. Still cautious, though, I didn’t get very involved. In my mind I didn’t need to get that involved because this time I had a plan; I knew exactly what was going to happen on that plan. I was going to go to the new Highline branch of Central Washington University and in two years I was going to be teaching in a sixth grade classroom.

A few quarters later I met Dr. Barbara Clinton who runs the Honors Scholar program and who just happened to be the instructor of a class my HCC Sociology instructor suggested I take called Honors 100. The first day of class I explained to her my plan and she thought it was a decent idea, but questioned whether I was aiming a little too low. She suggested that I try to get into several other schools as well as CWU at Highline. Seemed a little crazy, but I did what I was asked to, meetings with heads of programs at Seattle University and transfer coordinators at Pacific Lutheran University and even looking online at application dates for east coast schools. What ended up happening is something that I would never have dreamed of. As an afterthought I mentioned something about finishing my degree where I started, at the University of Washington. Dr. Clinton pushed me on that point and introduced me to some people (and pushed me to meet some on my own) that ultimately got me reinstated to the UW Seattle. That is where I’ll be starting to finish my degree this fall. But not only that, I will be going on to graduate school and getting my PhD in order to teach not only sixth graders, but college students as well. It’s also beyond that. Through Dr. Clinton “opening doors” that I chose to walk through I was able to receive several awards including the Shirley B. Gordon scholarship. I was the student commencement speaker for Highline last June and I recently found out that I have been accepted into the McNair Scholars program at the UW. All of these things (and many others I don’t have room to write about) I can attribute to a select few people, and Dr. Barbara Clinton and the Honors Scholar Program is definitely very high on that list.