About this time two years ago, I arrived in the old Humanities building to meet with an advisor in the journalism department. As a transfer student from another country, admitted to SF State only weeks before, I felt particularly excited. But by the end of the conversation I had answers to a number of my questions -- among them, "How many semesters before I graduate?"
After eight years of studying for exams, preparing papers and the like in two universities in Lima, Peru, only to drop out, I was determined this time to go to school once again, at 32 years old, and get my BA once and for all.
For years I heard the importance of setting goals in life, but I never paid much attention to what people would say about it. It now seems to me that the pretty good times I had while at school and at the many different jobs I had -- from hotel receptionist to translator -- kept me from giving serious thought to my future. I never asked myself what I really wanted to be or do in the future and how to get it.
In other words, I never set a goal.
This has been my first semester at the Golden Gater, and with only a few units remaining, I should be graduating in spring 1996. If I was excited on that advising day two years ago, imagine how I feel today as this long journey to graduation is finally coming to an end.
But hopefully I will still be 35 the day I graduate. Maybe I took too long to set at least one goal in my life, but I feel very happy because I do believe I'll achieve this first one.
Hopefully, I'll have time to catch up for the time lost.
[ Golden Gater Online December 12, 1995 ]
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