Crossing the Rough Road to MC

By Ashley Neyra

Being a part of the ACES ambassador leadership program, we are required to do panels for incoming MC students. During preparation for one of those panels, I was asked the question that I think many incoming MC students have. “What was the rough road you had to cross over when going into MC?” This brought me back to when I was a ninth grader in high school full of ambition, and high expectations of what her future would be like. All of those years of high school, I worked hard to earn the highest grades and participate in every extracurricular I could put my hands on in hopes that it would lead me to a great four-year institution.

Being a teenager, of course, I ran into rough patches with my parents and thought that going to an out-of-state college would be the solution to everything. Although, If I’m being honest was the fact, I didn’t want to be sitting next to the people who did nothing throughout high school and just ended up in the same classroom as them. I felt like I worked too hard and too much to be with them. In my senior year, after applying to 21 colleges, and being accepted into 17, waitlisted to three and was only rejected from one. I realized the cost was too high, which led me to consider Montgomery College as an option.

My first semester, I was very unhappy with the situation, I thought I was a failure for being here. This wasn’t part of my initial plan. Although after being at MC for three years and soon graduating with two associates, I know that it was the best decision I could’ve made. I was presented with so many opportunities, beyond my imagination. If you were to tell 18-year-old me I’d become editor-in-chief of the Globe newspaper, travel to South Carolina to do community service, and be in the ACES ambassador program, I don’t think I would’ve believed you. I’ve accomplished more at MC than I could have imagined and those are only one of the few things I’ve been able to do.