Graduation

[MT Gianni]

Dawn, one of the crazy things in life is that you can get a better paying job while attending a college or trade school than you can as a HS Graduate. It doesn't make sense but it seems so.

[dragonrider]

Congratulations Dawn.

[runfiveslittlegirl]

41 I will try that once I get on my feet and doing what I need to do! Thank you!

[runfiveswife]

ok so we have 6 days to go then it is graduation this is going way to fast wow i hope i make it with out bawling my head off..

[oneokie]

ok so we have 6 days to go then it is graduation this is going way to fast wow i hope i make it with out bawling my head off..

The mother of the graduate is supposed, and allowed to do that.

[runfiveslittlegirl]

She didn't quite make it. She ended up in tears.

[btroj]

Dawn, my wife shed a tear at my daughters graduation earlier this month. Oddly, my wife's name is Dawn!
While my daughter was at a few graduation parties my wife and I went out and bought ourselves graduation gifts, we figured we had accomplished something too! Heck, the kid was still alive!

Congrats, dream big, and never stop dreaming.

[Blacksmith]

All her uncles here that helped with her homework so she could graduate should buy themselves a new mould!

[runfiveslittlegirl]

Had a fun weekend! It was interesting!

[runfiveslittlegirl]

[redneckdan]

Here is my 2 cents as a recent college grad. Some one will probably come along in a bit and say the exact opposite.

Don't feel like you have to go to college right away. If you are not sure what you want to study you may want to get out in the world and figure out what you like. I highly recommend leaving your home town if possible. I left and went back 4 years later to visit. Same people doing the same thing. It was like the time hadn't even elapsed. If you want to change and grow up, ya gotta leave home.

A person can waste a lot of time and money jumping from major to major. When choosing a major be sure to do a lot of research into job placement for that degree and that particular school. I know a lot of recent grads who can't find work because of the major they chose. They only thing worse than working at McDonalds as a high school grad is working there as a college degree holder $80,000 in debt.

Learn some skills. Working on cars, welding, machining, electrical work whatever. My Opa made it very clear to me that an economy is constantly fluctuating, the more skills you have the better your odds of making it through rough patch. His advice paid off during college. I hopped from job to job but never was without work. Even during the recent down turn.

Your ability to gather financial aid greatly improves in 3 situations; you join the military, you get married or you turn 23 years old. After one of the those events your parents income and assets no longer count against you on the FAFSA form that you will need to fill out to apply for most college aid. Before getting married Jen and I were barely scraping though, she was in worse shape then me because of her parent's income level. I spent a lot of afternoons in the woods doing home work waiting for dinner to come along for the both of us.

Hopefully you decide on a field that is of some use ie something outside the humanities department. You will probably get the chance to go out and work as an intern or co/op for a semester or more. Take every advantage of that opportunity. After graduation, companies will hire previous interns before even taking resumes from outsiders. An intern is a known quantity to the company.

That is about all I can think of at the moment.

Congratulations on your accomplishment. Life gets much better after high school.