Feature

Sacrifices Bring Security for Future

Every other day when Nic Coyne sits in welding class, he doesn’t daydream about lunch or spend the hour texting friends. Because he has chosen welding as his career, he is working as hard as he can to afford his path through his chosen two year welding school, Missouri Institute of Welding.
“I started looking for a new job that paid enough money and sat down and made a financial plan,” Coyne said. His main dilemma is getting “all together since I’m paying for all of [college] myself.”
Everyday after high school except for Tuesdays, instead of doing homework or spending time with his family, Coyne frequents construction sites installing dry wall and carpets or working on farms. He continues this work ethic throughout the summer. Although Coyne’s dedication is admirable, he is one of many students sacrificing time for their dream education, guidance counselor Melissa Coil said.
“I definitely know kids that haven’t gone to their ‘it’ school only because they can’t afford it,” Coil said. “There are a lot of kids that will work full time … to make that school work for them.”
Although he recognizes paving his own way towards the dream is a reasonable sacrifice, Coyne still misses some of the simple things every high schooler should enjoy.
His biggest regret is “not being able to be with my girlfriend as much,” Coyne said, and “not being able to hang out as with my friends and family.”
Senior Bess Goodfellow will soon be separated from her friends and family, not by time but by an ocean. Next year, Goodfellow will attend school in Turkey instead of the United States. Because she wants to attend Tufts University or the University of Chicago, Goodfellow decided to graduate a year early and spend what was going to be her senior year studying abroad in order to better her chances of acceptance. In addition, she thought studying abroad would be a good experience because she wants to explore other parts of the world and emerge herself in the culture of those outside the United States.
“I’ll miss everyone here a lot, and I think it’ll be hard to get to know people [in Turkey] because I don’t speak the language as much,” Goodfellow said. “But eventually I’ll come back and see everyone [again], which will be exiting.”
Although graduating early for Goodfellow goes hand in hand with her desire for her dream college experience, she still regrets a few academic perks in high school she had to sacrifice along with her senior year in order to study abroad.
“The are a couple classes I missed out on by graduating early. Sometimes it feels like I’m rushing through everything,” Goodfellow said. “Even though I’m missing some things, I feel like I’m gaining other [lessons].”
Goodfellow already anticipates some learning experiences and problems she will face in Turkey when she leaves behind the familiar culture and environment of her hometown.
“I know there are a lot of religious differences that will be hard to wrap my head around at first,” Goodfellow said. In addition, “there are also a lot of differences with the way the government interacts with the people there.”
While Goodfellow will be submerged in a completely new culture and living through overseas hardships, Coyne will set off on an adventure where his main concerns are his personal relationships with those he loves, including leaving behind his “sweetheart.” However, he is willing to make the sacrifice because he knows it’s worth it.
“I’m not that worried about it because it’s a high paying job,” Coyne said, “and it’s what I want to do. It’ll pay off in the end.”
Feature by Daphne Yu

Podcast

All the help you can get: students share their scholarship stories

Q&A with Current College Students

Q&A with Missy Wheeler, RBHS Alum and LSU Student
Q: What do you feel is the most important factor in choosing a college?
A: I’m kinda between two main reasons to choose a good college. The first is your academic program. You want the kind of school that not only has the major you’re looking for. You probably want to also be thinking about a backup plan just in case you decide to change majors. … You want a school that has a really good program for you. Mizzou is a good example: if you want to go to journalism school then Mizzou is the place to go. The other main factor is the place that you feel comfortable. Definitely, get a tour of the college. You want to know the place where you’ll be living and staying and all of that. When you go on a tour, if you can’t see yourself sitting on a bench in the quad or studying in that library specifically or sleeping in that dorm room you are looking at. If you can’t see yourself, oh just resting under that tree with your friends, if you can’t imagine yourself there then don’t go there. Because you want to feel comfortable where you are because you are going to be living in this place for eight months of the year and four more after that. It’s going to be your life and you want to be able to see yourself living there.
Q: Why did you select your current college and what factors were at play?
A: I go to Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I choose it kinda because I consider it has been a part of my life. … I have been visiting Louisiana seeing family like every single new year and over time it been an important place to me. When it came time to choose college, I knew I wanted to go south somewhere warm where I didn’t want to worry about the weather on the way to class. And I was looking at LSU, thought about … and I knew after touring it that it was a place that I would really like. … Has a good journalism school too. … I applied to LSU in July and decided that if I didn’t get into LSU, I would start applying to other places. Got in to LSU September my senior year and after that I knew it was the place for me and didn’t apply anywhere else actually. I was so excited about that. I think if I kinda found out… I would have applied other places.
Q: What has been the hardest thing about out of state college life?
A: I do miss my family. I really truly do. It is probably not oh I don’t get to see them. It is just like the little thing s in life. Like I can’t share all these new experiences I’m having in college with my family. Like I don’t get to come home and tell them about my day at dinner. I know I have family in Baton Rouge but I don’t exactly have a place to go when I want to get away and I’m stressed out about it. Like when life gets hard you need the people in life that kind of know what you are going through to be with. When you are going out of state, everything around you is new not just the people even your surroundings. Like you don’t really know … it takes time to make the kind of friend that are like long that everybody says you make in college. … You can make them eventually but it does take time. …
Q: How is budgeting different when out of state?
A: Be careful about budgeting. To go to LSU I had to get scholarships. … I’m living in a dorm. Every day of the week I try to eat on campus like in a dinning hall. Eating out cost so much more money than you would’ve expected living at home.
Q: What is the most awkward thing that has happened to you at an out of state school because you didn’t know the customs there?
A: …Louisiana is really special in that everybody has this cease the day look at life. … I was a little lost on exactly how much fun everyone wanted to have. … You can’t get the Cajun words wrong. Go is spelled [differently]. … I don’t know how to pronounce where all these people are from. …
Q: How has the culture of the school and surrounding influenced you?
A: I already knew going to Louisiana like the culture. All the schools I toured, they defiantly didn’t have the same culture even in the same degree program. … LSU’s campus is like covered in oak trees. … I can just relax under them. I am comforted by what I am around.
 
Q&A with Omar Tonhasse
Q: Why do people have negative connotation with instate schools?
A: The overprestige of some of the higher institutions as well as ignorance of what instate schools have to
offer. I know in my case I live in a college town so [the] University of Missouri has always been around.
It’s been there since I was 5 years old … It was kind of associated with the status quo. Anything higher
could represent a significant advance in what I was trying to attain. It was just more of the same.
Furthermore when you really look into instate schools, just looking at their tuition rates, they usually
have a whole lot more resources they’re usually very well staffed, usually could offer you almost as
much as the private institutions minus maybe a name brand. I mean, maybe because there’s so many of
them that’s something to do with it
Maybe it’s the reputation of the college culture that people expect instate students to party every night,
skip their classes, not be academically motivated. Maybe that’s where it comes from. A part of that is
true. The idea of it being more prevalent in instate schools is true. Really it’s a matter of ignorance, not
doing your research. If someone looks into it they’ll see that instate schools have more than enough
resources to get you where you need to go.
Q: What about research colleges, I know Mizzou is but others aren’t, did you just get lucky in that respect?
A: A lot of instate [schools] don’t have the funding Mizzou has.
Do you think that other instates can support their needs in other states?
Honestly I don’t know about other instate schools to make a judgment about this situation, but I’ll say
that as far as research coming out of other universities, I hear about it coming from other instate schools
… As far as research goes I don’t think that state schools are any worse off than a private institution.
Maybe a little bit.
Q: What benefits did you enjoy from going to an instate school?
A: I’m in premed right? As a premed I can go to Mizzou and I plan on applying to med school in 4 years. At
Mizzou I have a specific honors premed advisor with the issue of getting students to med school and
she’s always available for advice. The other thing is that at Mizzou the quality of education is very high,
the quality of students isn’t very high. The stereotype that I’ve had of students not being motivated is
so far mostly true. That’s not to say that there aren’t students who aren’t motivated. There are students
who are smart and want to learn.
I also have a lot of time to do other things that will progress me towards medical school, like I can do research. I do research almost 3 or 4 days [a week], I volunteer at a hospital, I’m involved in clubs, I do community service, I do all the things I need to do to put myself in position to get into med school.
If I was at a private institution where I’d have to be spending copious amounts of time studying to do
well in school to keep my GPA up, I wouldn’t be able to do all the other things that I’d need to get into
med school. Not in the sense that I want to be a doctor I want to be in med school, but that I’m getting
valuable experiences in things other than academics.
Q: What advantage does being local provide?
A: It’s a matter of connections. I got into a research lab; it took me a month to get in, while people I
know out of state still haven’t gotten in. Connections for getting into a research lab, job shadowing
specifically, I’ve gotten to know a lot of doctors. It’s gotten me a lot of experience job shadowing
doctors because they’ll go out of their way to help me get the experience I need. That’s just a matter of
connections.
Q: What are the disadvantages of not getting out of the state and exploring?
A: If I went out of state I guess that could be valuable because there’s not [as] much familiarity. I don’t
have that sense of not being part of an environment having to adapt. That could be beneficial; that
could be the only way I’m being disadvantaged. If I went to a private institute, I would have been around
smart people and would have made me smarter somehow.

Dream College Quiz