Graduation

Congratulations on your completion of secondary-level schooling!

As for me, I was somewhat of a troubled student during school. While I was in high school, my parents were going through really bad relationship issues. In addition to that, I was having some problems with a female (but moreso, a problem with her boyfriend). To say that it got in the way of my academics would be nothing short of an understatement, though.

I had a 3.7 GPA coming into my Senior year along with a composite score of 31 on my ACTs (no SATs, though), and my grades were slipping slightly because I would try to stay away from my house whenever I could. This situation started to bring about a lack of time for me to do any sorts of schoolwork because I wanted to keep away from home. During school, a close female friend of mine ended up getting into a relationship with a guy who was not only paranoid about others, but also very aggressive and annoying when trying to resolve situations. I used to be very playful with my female friend - poking/tickling/whatever, but we both knew that it was just friendly because neither of us had a real (intimate) interest in one another. Her boyfriend would constantly pester me and tell me to leave her alone, even though I had known her longer than they'd even known each other.

I'm a very docile person, but if you get under my skin/provoke me enough, I will respond. The very last time I saw her boyfriend was him coming to my school locker while I was pulling out books to place in my bookbag. Long story short, he came up to me and threatened to harm me if I didn't "stop" what I was doing, and I slammed a locker in his face. He was knocked out on the floor and I just panicked. Never went back to my high school again...

After almost three years of not going to school, I finally decided to take initiative and go for my GED. A lot of people told me that I would pass it with ease, but I was really reluctant to believe them. Scoring is out of 800, with 410 being the minimum passing score and 450 being the required average to pass the examination:



I'd say that's pretty good considering the fact that I've been out of school since May of 2009. The even cooler thing is, on my official GED transcripts, it says this:
"You have demonstrated the 21st century skills of
- communication
- information processing
- problem solving
- higher order thinking skills

in the five test areas (Reading, Writing, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies) to perform as effectively in the workplace or in higher education as the top 3% of traditional high school graduates."

I'm actually going to be filling out FAFSAs soon, and I need to schedule an appointment with an academic counselor at County College of Morris (community college of Morris County, NJ). Their curriculum is nothing short of a dream - I've never seen a community college offer as much as they do. It's great to see doors in my life finally opening

EDIT: I apologize for the huge backstory, but it is pertinent to the situation, haha