2003, I Withdrew From the Washington State

¶ … 2003, I withdrew from the Washington State University after having been placed on academic probation. In retrospect, I lacked the necessary motivation at the time to devote my most conscientious efforts to my academic studies, partly because I was experiencing a degree of disconnection between my studies and their practical application to the real world.

A hoped to rekindle my motivation to succeed academically in my chosen major field of study, (Human Development), by involving myself first-hand in some of the foreign cultures and practices with which my only familiarity to date came from my reading. I spent approximately half a year in Australia, where I lived and worked with native Australians. My experiences in Australia included working, in a very hands-on capacity, on an organic produce farm, and at a refuge for orphaned kangaroos; later, assisting at a white water river rafting company.

Despite the fact that I was working in Australia by choice, I could not help feeling almost envious of some of the foreign tourists with whom my work brought me into contact. The experience helped me appreciate my good fortune to have been born and raised in North America, where one's future truly does lie in one's own hands.

Just as I had hoped, my time away from a formal academic setting did renew my commitment to complete my degree, but it also had another unanticipated but very beneficial effect on me: after experiencing some of the hardships of everyday life from which most American university students are insulated, I appreciate the opportunity to pursue a fulfilling career in my chosen field merely by achieving the academic success that has always been within my grasp.

When I returned from Australia, I maintained several different working positions, with the specific goal of saving enough money to finance my educational goals of completing the degree that I had begun at Washington State University. I spent two years working in Hawaii where my boyfriend was stationed at the Navy base at Pearl Harbor.

Living in Hawaii also contributed to my motivation to pursue a meaningful career, because I had the opportunity to visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial to the American servicemen and civilians who perished on December 7, 1941, whose lives were cut short at approximately the same age where my adult life is only just beginning, and which is limited only by the amount of effort I am willing to put in over the.