Overcoming Barriers: My Journey to College

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“You don't want to be like your parents!" triggers memories of the day I found my compelling reason to attend college. My grandfather is a very wise man who exhibits the meaning of sacrifice and hard work in my family. My first visit to the UOG admissions office with him was a dreadful experience. As I gazed at the cost of tuition yearly, I felt a sudden weight on my shoulders. For a moment I felt like a traveler lost in a foreign place trying to figure out where to go and how to get to my destination. I knew at that moment that I could not afford it unless I found a job to pay for the expenses or received some form of financial aid. As I requested a FASFA form and began filling out the application, my hand began to tremble and again I felt …show more content…

Although Douglass’s primary obstacle to educating himself was not money, he still was challenged by the standards of slavery. The text begins with how the standards of slavery transformed his Mistress from a tender-hearted woman who once treated him like a normal being into a corrupted person who displayed no sign of remorse for her immoral actions. According to Douglass, his Mistress had once educated him. After her transformation, he then recognized that she did every attempt to impede him from education himself. It is evident in the text when he stated:” Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper” (Douglass 73). However, despite the challenges that Douglass faced, he managed to find every other alternative to educate himself. Although he lacked the freedom to learn, Douglass lived in a house replete with food and essentials needed to sustain him a comfortable life. In exchange for knowledge, Douglass would offer bread to the white poor children in his neighborhood. Another way that Douglass educated himself was by writing on the Crates in the shipyard. He would observe the men that would write on the timber, labeling them. Lastly, while both Master Hugh and Douglass’s Mistress were gone, he would read books written by Hugh and eventually learned how to write the very same way as his

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