What’s really going on for me now is the next step to finishing my degree; I’m about to do something that 6 years ago I would have never imagined myself doing, I’m about to leave and go off to a real University. What’s even more surprising to me is how well I’ve done in school, right now I have a 3.56 GPA this number alone is what scares me. When I was in the 7th grade I was selected to be “Bruin of the Month”, during the award luncheon I was asked what did I want to do after high school, my answer was simple “I wanted to go to UCLA or Berkeley” to me it was just a dream, I only really picked those two because they were the only UC’s I knew of, it was something that I wanted but knew that I would never achieve. Now 11 years later I’m looking back at that and it’s humbling because I’m about to transfer to a UC, I’m about to really do it, the fact that I’m about to transfer to big kid college is scary.

This month I’ve been accepted to UC Merced and UC Davis. I’ll have to wait 3 more weeks until I hear from UCLA and Berkeley, and to be honest the wait is killing me. Both Merced and Davis are offering me a lot of Financial Aid the grants and scholarships alone over all my system fees which is something that I was not expecting at all, the UC’s Blue and Gold Opportunity Plan has ensured that I’ll have the money I need to go to the University of California and it’s something I’m truly thankful for.

My choice now is which school should I attend? I’m torn on a lot of things; how 18 year olds make this decision I’ll never know. It really comes down to 5 big factors for me: Tarra, Financial Aid, 2nd semester of Spanish, a Job, and graduating quickly. I miss Tarra, I really do and I want to be near her and that’s something that Davis can offer me that Merced can’t. Merced is offering me $1,500 in grant money then Davis is, plus I can keep my job which is a big plus for me. Davis will require me to take more Spanish; I’m horrible with foreign languages in fact I a B in Spanish 1 over summer school out of pitty. I love my job at BSK, I love the lab, I love how important my work is, and being able to stay with BSK is something that I really want to do. Finally I want to graduate quickly if this was high school all over again I would have no issues taking 5 years to get my degree but I’m not 18 I’m 24 and I’ll be 25 soon time is ticking and I really need to get on top of this degree.

I’m really anxious about Berkeley and UCLA; I’m worried about what will happen if they accept me. I know that my problems are really petty but they’re a really big deal to me this entire college transfer thing has taken up most of my life since I started to push myself towards going to a UC.

In the end we’ll see what happens over the next 3 or 4 weeks all I know is that I have to make up my mind soon. This entire process is frustrating but also at the same time it’s incredibly exciting, I’m just looking forward to the next 2 years and my graduation day.

My TAG for UC Davis and UC Merced!

The Transfer Admission Guarantee might just be one of the best kept secrets of the California Community College system. A lot of people don’t know this but all students in the California Community College system are given priority junior level  transfer consideration at all of the UC campuses, and all of them, expect UC Berkeley and UCLA, accept TAG’s from all of the California Community Colleges to guarantee students a spot as an incoming junior. I’m really grateful for the TAG’s, without them I would never be able to get into a UC using my high school grades.

I’ve been talking to my parents this last week about my transfer goals and have been asking their advice. When I sat down to talk with my Mother about my college transfer goals she start spurting off a list of college, it was kind of crazy for me because I wasn’t really expecting this much from her, I think my last 3 years of whining about college has made her numb to my nudges for help and have only made it more difficult for me to really drag her options and views out of her on this whole thing. My mother recited from memory a complete list of places she felt I should apply (including a lot of expensive Ivy League schools that don’t take transfers) she told me to apply to: UC Merced, UC Berkley, UCLA, The College and William and Mary, Norte Dame, Stanford, Yale, Brown, Santa Clara, and many many more. When she rattled off the list it felt to me almost like she had wanted to just yell all of this at me, she was very committed to the idea of me going to the best school possible so I could have the best chance at getting into law school. Sometimes I think she plans these little talks and just waits for me to come to her and ask for help as a way of catching me off guard.

My Great Grandfather William Angus Hamilton

The talk with my Father was a very different conversation, he told me that his father had gone to UC Berkley in 1918 and that his grandfather has been the Dean of the Law School at William and Mary and had founded the honor fraternity Pi Gamma Mu, and just like that he told me to apply to William and Mary. “Who knows, you might be a legacy or get a scholarship” I can always tell where my fathers goals are, my mother aims for me to go to the best school possible, my father aims for me to go to the best school possible and get as much money for free as humanly possible.

Since both of my parents independently recommended that I apply to The College of William and Mary I’m planning on flying out to the East Coast with Tarra to go to one of their transfer days in November to check the college out. I’ve always been proud to be a Californian and as of late I’ve become even more proud of my states higher educational system, but maybe I do need a change in my surroundings and atmosphere, maybe I should take a more serious look at some of the east coast schools and see what the other side of America has to offer me.

Entrance Sign to CSU Fresno

California State University, Fresno

Smittcamp House

Today since I had the day off from work I decided to take my first college tour for this project. I scheduled a walking tour of the Fresno State campus for 1:00pm on the Fresno State website and made my way over to Fresno States Smittcamp Alumni House to pick up a few major sheets and wait for my tour guide to arrive. I had arrived to the visitor center about 10 minutes early and had taken a seat when all of a sudden a women comes down stairs and asks for “Kyle Hamilton” I stand up thinking that she’s my tour guide and walk over to her, this all makes perfect sense to me because I gave the school my contact information when I signed up for the tour, she introduces herself as one of the members of the alumni association and that she had read my tweet about my upcoming tour and had seen my tweet about arriving on campus, so she thought it would be nice to come down and meet me and give me a deck of Fresno State playing cards. I was stunned, someone out there reads my tweets, and in fact twitter has so far to date landed me a pretty sweet deck of playing cards!

Soon the rest of the families arrive at the Smittcamp House many of them are from out of the Fresno Area a few from LA and a few from the Bay Area, I notice right away that I’m the oldest person in the group, even the tour guide is a year younger then I am, and that I’m the only person who isn’t escorted by a parent. I never quite realized how oddly lonely this tour was going to be it felt almost creepy that I was alone on this tour, for all my future tours I’m at least going to bring a friend along so I’m not flying solo in crowds of 17 and 18 year olds with their parents in tow.

The New Henry Madden Library

Now to be honest I’ve never been to thrilled with the idea of going to Fresno State, I’ve always wanted to go to a UC or private school and finely leave Fresno once and for all. Yes I’m a giant snob and yes maybe I should go out and buy a top hat complete with monocle. But alas this tour really opened my eyes quite a bit, I learned about a lot of the things that make Fresno State unique like their on campus crime lab, their scholarship program, community support, on campus winery, and student facilities. I also am now seriously considering going to CSU Fresno State, but more importantly I think I’m willing to let go of years of Fresno State hatred and shunning.

One thing that I noticed right away was that the campus feels like a college, it’s not like Fresno City College that feels like a large ghetto high school, complete with ash trays and graffiti, or anything like the new Willow International Center, which I currently attend, which feels like the worlds largest newest shiniest high school stuffed to the gills with 18 and 19 year olds. No CSU Fresno is a real college, it feels real, it appears to me that students respect their campus and that there is an active student body here on campus.

Once I check out the schools Political Science and History departments I can see myself being sold into going to this school. Some of the big things in favor for me to attend CSU Fresno is that it’s close to home, If I go to Fresno State then I could live at home, keep my job, save money, and almost be able to pay for school without having to take out loans. These are really quite attractive attributes to Fresno State, mostly the very small amount of money I would have to take out in order to finish my degree. Now the big downsides would be that I would still be living in Fresno, I would be living at home with my parents till I was 26, and that I don’t know how CSU Fresno would look on an application to Law School or graduate school. One thing that I would really like to know is how Fresno State compares to other schools in terms of Professional School and Graduate School placement, if I knew this then some of my biggest dilemmas in picking between CSU Fresno versus a UC would help me form my opinion.

Student Union Building

So the tour starts without a hitch, we walk the campus and learn about all the things that make Fresno State really unique such as it’s winery and dairy programs,  we also learn about Fresno States on campus crime lab, how big their music program is, and about how unique the teacher credential program is. From what I’ve gathered from the tour CSU Fresno is one of the biggest fish in the CSU college system, they have a large amount of research that comes from Fresno State, they have a lot of top notch programs and facilities here that in turn make this place look like a really good school. Now I’m not sure if every college has this kind of stuff, I would imagine that they would have a similar set of student services and facilities but I think that Fresno State tends to care more about it’s students and student body then the average school, now this is just what I’ve gathered from my friends that have attended Fresno State and from a hour tour with a paid tour guide.

All in all I was quite impressed with my tour of CSU Fresno State. A school that once started as my last hope at college a real college education has turned from a dark scary place chalk full of elitist shame into a fully acceptable place for me to attended college. I think that if I hadn’t hated on Fresno State so much in high school and if I had had the grades to get into Fresno State I would have done it in a heart beat and not only been a proud bulldog by now, but I would also be finished with College by now. It’s amazing how much a little attitude and self determination can change the entire course of your life.

2010 for me is the year that my entire educational experience will change; it marks the end of my community college experience and the start of my 4 year college life. For years I’ve wondered about without direction and without motivation, it wasn’t until 2008 that I finely buckled down and started to work and apply myself at school. As a result of this I’ve discovered more about myself then I would have ever believed possible all because of my own effort to improve myself. I will always be thankful to the California Community College system that without the existence of such institutions people like myself would never have been given the opportunity to go back to school, let alone make strides towards moving on to a 4 year school and becoming a college graduate. It is because of the California Community Colleges that I’ve been able to have hope for my own future and found the strength within myself to reach my full potential. Since high school I’ve always perceived myself as unintelligent, looking back on the last 6 or 7 years of my life I’ve come to realize how bright I really am, and that the only thing preventing me from going off to college and being happy has been myself. I’m the only thing that has been preventing me from going off to real college, not the shady art school I attended after high school or my local city college that served as an oasis after my fall out from Brooks no I mean real college that mystical place that everyone seamed to fly away to after high school. Now at 23 I get to do what so many of my other high school classmates were doing at 16 and 17, filling out applications for college. This entire process is exhilarating; it involves a little bit of dreaming, for a few moments I can believe that I might be accepted to some of the best universities in our country if not the world, then there is the flip side of the coin where I fear that maybe no school will have me. It’s an interesting period of my life one of self improvement and of personal discovery. One of the most exciting parts of transferring to real college is that I get to shop around for my future school, as a result I’m not holding back on what I can achieve. I’ve narrowed down my choices of schools to

UC Berkley (I’ve wanted to go to Berkley since I was in the 7th grade, it’s one of the top schools in the country)

UCLA (I have a lot of friends that live in LA and to be honest I like the city)

UC Davis (I love the city of Davis, I like Sacramento, and I have a lot of friends there as well, plus I can get a TAG agreement so I’m guaranteed entry!)

Stanford (I’m reaching pretty far even by my standards if I think I’m going to be going here, they only take about 2-3% of there transfers applicants)

Brown (who knows, maybe the east coast needs a little Kyle in their life’s, once again if Brown were to accept me I might cry tears of joy)

University of San Francisco (I would like to attend a Catholic school if I could, I would like to grow in my faith, since I converted I’ve kind of wanted to attend a religious school)

CSU Fresno (The backup, I don’t want to live with my parents anymore, but if life shits on me again then I would at least in school)

This year is going to be the year of the Kyle; I’ll be in my final days of Community College and will mark the start my first term of real college. I’m looking forward to 2010, I’m looking forward to wearing one of those silly sweatshirts with my colleges name plastered all over it, I’m looking forward to starting this next chapter of my life, and most importantly I’m looking forward to finely being able to look forward.

2010, the year when everything changed.