Student-parents at CSUN,
Motivation to keep pressing on through the college journey can be hard to find.  Sometimes I feel as if my body has been filled with so much caffeine that I personally could keep a Starbucks in business.  But, I do see the end approaching and one of the most important things I try to keep in mind is what I’m actually doing this for.  It only takes a moment of time with my kids to figure this out.

Prior to making the decision to go back to school, I was working a full-time corporate office job.  For 12 years I wasted my life away behind a small cubicle, excluding my happiness from life’s equation.  I had come to terms with the fact that this was going to be it for me.  Obtaining a one percent raise every year and saving enough paid time off to get a vacation each year was less than rewarding and somewhat degrading.  Living like this was making everything around me crumble as my creativity wept for an outlet on a daily basis.

It didn’t take long to notice how this was affecting the happiness of all that surrounded me, including my kids.  Although being a full-time student and mother carries loads of stress, it’s different than the types of stress incurred through doing a job that is so despised.  The battles I face now end with feelings of accomplishment, strength and confidence that I wouldn’t have ever experienced within that small cubicle.

Several people had said that a college degree is not needed in order to get a job.  That might be true, but in life a job that just makes enough money to survive is not what provides happiness.  I know that if I remained working in the field that I had planted myself into, solely for security purposes, it would have been the worst decision I had ever made.  Though sometimes anxiety can reach high levels, I always keep that little cubicle in mind and the reason I made the choice to go back to college falls right into place.

Michelle Verne
Staff Reporter