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Sanee Murray

Professor Primm-Dayot

GEN ST 391 J

5 May 2019

My Road To Success

In life we all have to make sacrifices in order to be successful. If we don’t sacrifice the

things that we want, then the things that we want become the sacrifice that we have to make. I

come from a family where only a few are successful and the rest are just crabs in a bucket,

struggling to get to the top. As a kid, I watched my mom, a single parent, take on a dual role and

have to sacrifice so many things, including college, in an attempt to make sure that I don’t ever

have to go through similar experiences. Despite experiencing homelessness, witnessing domestic

violence, and falling victim to depression, I think that I’ve done a pretty good job so far, thanks

to my mom being my biggest supporter.

College has always been a part of my game plan. Neither of my parents went to college,

so I have pushed myself extra hard to get to where I am now, attending one of the largest

universities on the west coast, the University of Washington because getting a good education is

giving me a shot at success. Along the way, I have made lots of sacrifices, and even made some

mistakes. Although making mistakes is a normal part of life, it has taken me a while to realize

that taking responsibility and facing up to our mistakes is a good way to learn and avoid making

the same mistake again. This is an important step to becoming an adult. What has made college

so stressful for me is the fact that as I am transitioning from high school to college, I am also

transitioning from being an adolescent to being an adult. Being on my own and being forced to
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make my own decisions is scary. Let’s just say that neither of these transitions were easy, and

definitely took a lot of hard work and dedication.

To ease my way into transitioning into a new environment, I participated in UW’s Early

Fall Start program. I felt that this was a great opportunity to get acquainted with campus life

before it flooded with thousands of students. I took an English course so that I could get a head

start on essay writing. ENGL 108 was a good course to take and an easy course to take for extra

credits. When autumn quarter started, I was confident in my ability to write a good essay. As

another way to make my transition smooth, I chose to be put into a FIG. I think for some people,

FIG’s are very helpful, but that was not the case for me. The whole purpose of a FIG was to help

first-year students build relationships with other students and get acquainted with campus life.

My courses were extremely easy and less tedious than I had expected. Taking a FIG gave me the

impression that the rest of my college experience would reflect my autumn quarter experience.

I personally felt that a FIG was a bad idea for me because not only did I have a hard time

choosing my winter courses, I also had a hard time transitioning into my winter quarter courses.

Last year in January, my grandfather passed away from stage four esophageal cancer.

This was the hardest thing that I have ever gone through. My grandfather was like a dad and I

had never experienced this type of loss before. People experience grief differently. Some people

experience it right away. Unfortunately, I started grieving a year after he passed, which happened

to also fall around the time winter quarter started. All motivation and hope I had disappeared. I

became depressed. Some days were worse than others. There were times when I didn’t want to

leave my bed, and then there were times when I forced myself to get up and go to class.

Eventually the little bit of strength that I had faded away and I stopped going to class. Not only

did this set me back academically, I was financially struggling. I had to give back my financial
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aid and had to pay housing charges. I took spring break to reflect and work on myself. My

biggest problem was not knowing what my purpose is on this earth.

My intended major is Psychology, minoring in either sociology or law, societies, and

justice. It has always been a dream to pursue a career in the criminology industry, but since I

have started furthering my education, that has changed. I took my first psychology course during

winter quarter and did absolutely horrible due to my emotional state. For the little bit of time that

I spent taking that course, I found myself losing interest in psychology, which was frustrating to

me since I have always wanted to pursue that major.

One of my many strengths is my ability to plan things out. I have come up with a plan of

what I want my life to look like and everything that I need to do is specific. The downside to this,

and one of my weaknesses, is not knowing how to problem solve and create back-up plans when

things don’t specifically go as planned. I panic and might even make irrational decisions. My

loss of interest in psychology, made me question if college is even worth it. I had the mindset

that maybe I should go a different route. One thing my mom has always taught me is to never cut

off your options. Rather than withdrawing, I decided to stick it out and pursue a degree in

psychology but also pursue entrepreneurism. If psychology doesn’t work out for me, I have

something to fall back on. Even if psychology does work out for me, I still have a second career

that will bring in extra money.

Some of my bad habits have made my school year a bit difficult. Some of these bad

habits, I have tried to break but some habits are harder to break than others. In autumn quarter I

took the LASSI. My LASSI results suggested that in order for me to be successful, I needed to

improve my studying habits so that I can do well on exams. I have always struggled with finding

ways to study for an exam because I always feel like I am studying either more than I need to, or
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too little. Therefore, studying never became a habit that I acquired. A few ways that I have tried

to improve this is by taking notes, identifying the difference between relevant and irrelevant

information, asking questions, reaching out to my professors, and most importantly not

overloading myself with too much information. Note taking is an important skill and habit to

have because the notes we take are to help us study and get ready for exams. If the notes that we

take are not good, it is safe to say that the information is not good, and we do bad on exams. I

like to write, but sometimes I can go overboard and write down too much. I have played around

and have discovered some note-taking techniques that work for me, since everyone is different. I

focused more on writing less, but getting more information. Those were just a few bad habits and

how I have worked towards improving them.

Of course, not all my bad habits are related to my academic journey. Since birth I have

acquired some personal bad habits. My biggest and worst habit is not prioritizing my health.

More specifically mental and physical. I have always put everything before my health, especially

education. I can count the times that I have stayed home for being sick. Being unhealthy is

overall bad for everything. If I am sick, I should not attend my classes, because if I do, all of my

attention is going towards me being sick. For example, I might be worried about blowing my

nose or keeping my eyes from watering rather than taking notes. With this being my worst habit,

I have tried so many different solutions, and nothing has seemed to change. Lack of sleep has

been a challenge, so I have tried being on a schedule where I get at least 6 hours of sleep.

Something that I have noticed is that there are some days when I need more hours of sleep. So I

have decided that two days out of the week, I sleep in and take those days to do homework and

study. The downside to this is that I miss my classes. My solution to not fall behind, is to watch
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the recorded lectures and take notes the same day. Some people might frown at this or have an

opinion, but at the end of the day, only you can decide what works for you.

Moving forward, I will continue to work towards my goals and dreams, but a little bit

different than I have in the past. These past couple of quarters have taught me that not everything

is going to go as planned, and that’s okay. However, in order to stay on the right track, always

have a back up plan…or two. It took me a while to realize that only I know what works for me.

Everyone is going to have an opinion about how you should be living your life. The best thing to

do is decided whether or not you think it will work for you. Never feel pressured into doing

anything.